III! 

fUROPFM, 
UIMAKY/ 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 

GIFT  OF 

Mrs.  Myrtle  Tally 


THE  EUROPEAN  LIBRARY 

LDITLD  BY  J.   E.  5PINGARN 


THE 

(EUROPEAN) 
V  LIBRARY; 


MODLRN  RUSSIAN  POLTRY 
AN  ANTHOLOGY 


CHOSEN  AND  TRANSLATED  BY 

BABLTTL  DLUTSCH 

AND 

AVRAHM   YARMOLIN5KY 


NEW  YORK 

HARCOURT,  BRACE  AND  COMPANY 
1921 


COPYRIGHT,    1921,   BY 
HARCOURT,    BRACK  AND   COMPANY,   INC. 


PRINTED    IN    THE    U.  S.  A.   BY 
RAHWAY.    N.    J. 


Colleg* 
Library 


TO 
A  THURSDAY  IN  APRIL 


1C60807 


Acknowledgments 

A  few  of  the  poems  included  in  this  volume  have 
appeared  in  The  Dial,  The  Freeman,  The  Nation,  and 
Poetry.  The  excerpt  from  "  The  Twelve  "  was  taken 
from  The  Twelve,  by  Alexander  Blok,  translated  from 
the  Russian  by  Babette  Deutsch  and  Avrahm  Yarmolin- 
sky  (New  York,  Huebsch,  1920), 


Foreword 

This  volume  heaps  the  anthological  Pelion  upon  the 
Ossa  of  translation.  It  aims  to  present  the  lyrical  poetry 
of  Russia  for  the  last  hundred  years  by  a  selection  of 
poems  translated  by  the  editors.  Within  the  fences  thus 
set  up  lay  a  wide  foreign  field  to  pick  from:  the  old- 
fashioned  garden  overrun  by  the  rank  growth  of  exotic 
flowers,  beautiful  weeds  outflanking  the  hothouse  plants. 
The  principle  of  selection  was,  so  far  as  might  be,  aesthetic. 
Poems  were  chosen  less  for  their  representative  quality 
than  for  their  immediate  worth  and,  of  course,  their 
ability  to  stand  the  test  of  translation.  In  view  of  the 
pioneer  character  of  this  work,  however,  some  conces- 
sion was  made  to  historical  considerations,  and,  there- 
fore, part  of  the  material  included  may  appear  rather 
jejune  and  vleux  jeu.  The  effort  was  to  give  a  brief 
general  glimpse  of  the  classic  poets  and  to  treat  in  greater 
detail  the  moderns  and  contemporaries  who  are,  to  the 
translators,  as  to  the  readers,  more  of  a  living  actuality. 

The  difficulties  of  selection  are  obvious.  You  may 
add,  you  may  alter  the  choice  how  you  will,  but  the 
sin  of  omission  will  cling  round  it  still.  In  this  case 
the  problem  was  sharpened  by  the  rigors  of  translation. 
These  were  not  mere  flowers  for  the  plucking.  They 
had  to  be  transplanted  into  strange  soil,  which  was  not 
hospitable  to  them  all.  Translation  has  been  likened  to 
"  the  wrong  side  of  a  Turkey  carpet."  The  question  was 


vi  Foreword 

how  best  to  carry  over,  unbroken  and  undiminished,  the 
colors  and  contours  of  the  right  side.  We  are  attached 
to  the  idea  that  we  have  given  as  much  to  the  originals 
as  we  took  from  them.  Adherence  to  metrical  and 
rhythmical  structure  was  possible,  owing  to  the  essential 
likeness  between  the  two  languages  with  regard  to  versifi- 
cation. In  matters  of  imagery  and  the  finer  aspects  of 
technique  there  was  also  an  attempt  to  be  as  faithful  as 
the  linguistic  media  allow.  But  juggling  is  a  fine  art, 
not  unworthy  of  the  service  of  Notre  Dame,  and  the 
three  bright  balls  of  substance,  form,  and  spirit  were 
not  always  easy  to  keep  in  the  air  at  once.  What  we 
continually  sought  was  to  produce,  in  the  end,  a  poem. 

The  personality  of  each  poet  is  brought  out  in  a  note 
preceding  the  selection  from  his  work,  and  the  filiation 
of  poetic  movements  is  briefly  indicated  in  the  introduc- 
tory essay. 

And  finally  a  word  pro  domo  nostra.  While  it  may 
be  difficult  to  single  out  each  collaborator's  part  in  the 
work,  it  is  possible,  and  perhaps  interesting,  to  define 
the  attitude  of  each.  The  one,  native  to  Russian  litera- 
ture, brought  to  the  task  all  the  prejudices  and  privileges 
of  long  intimacy.  The  other,  a  stranger,  saw  it  with 
the  fresh  vision  and  untaught  caprice  of  a  foreigner, 
making  a  less  practised  and  a  more  personal  approach. 
The  one  was  aware,  the  other  persuaded  of  the  gold  in 
the  Scythian  earth.  The  two  labored  together  to  wrest  it, 
like  the  one-eyed  Arimaspi,  from  the  guardian  gryphons. 
BABETTE  DEUTSCH. 
AVRAHM  YARMOLINSKY. 

New  York,  June  28,  1921. 


Contents 

PAGE 

FOREWORD v 

INTRODUCTION xi 

ALEXANDER  PUSHKIN  (1799-1837) 3 

A  Nereid 5 

"Behold  a  Sower" 6 

Three  Springs 7 

The  Prophet 8 

Verses  Written  During  a  Sleepless  Night  10 

Work ii 

Madonna 12 

YEVGENY  BARATYNSKY  (180x3-1844) 13 

Prayer 14 

ALEXEY  KOLTZOV  (1809-1842) 15 

An  Old  Man's  Song 16 

MIKHAIL  LERMONTOV  (1814-1841) 17 

The  Angel 18 

The  Cup  of  Life    .               19 

Gratitude 20 

From  "The  Daemon,"  Part  I,  xv 21 

Captive  Knight 22 

FYODOR  TYUTCHEV  (1803-1873) 23 

Twilight 24 

"As  Ocean's  Stream" 25 

Silentium 26 

Autumn  Evening 27 

July  14,  at  Night 28 

"  Oh,  Thou,  My  Wizard  Soul  " 29 

NIKOLAI  NEKRASOV  (1821-1877) 30 

"The  Capitals  Are  Rocked  with  Thunder "  ...  31 

"  My  Poems !  " 32 

The  Salt  Song 33 

ALEXEY  K.  TOLSTOY  (1817-1875) 34 

"My  Little  Almond  Tree" 35 

"A  Well,  and  the  Cherry  Trees  Swaying"  ...  36 

"Oh,  the  Ricka" 37 

vii 


viii  Contents 

PAGE 

APOLLON  MAIKOV  (1821-1897) 39 

Art 4° 

"  Upon  This  Wild  Headland" 41 

Summer  Rain 42 

AFANAST  SHENSHIN-FOETH  (1820-1892) 43 

"  Whispers,  Timid  Breathing  " 44 

The  Aerial  City 45 

Swallows 46 

YAKOV  POLONSKY  (1819-1898) 47 

The  Cosmic  Fabric 48 

Sorrow's  Madness 49 

VLADIMIR  SOLOVYOV  (1853-1900) 50 

"Below  the  Sultry  Storm" 51 

"With  Wavering  Feet" 52 

N.  MINSKY  (b.  1855) 53 

Force  .  .  -^» 54 

My  Temple 55 

DMITRY  MEREZHKOVSKY  (b.  1865) 56 

A  Prayer 57 

The  Trumpet  Call 58 

The  Curse  of  Love 60 

FYODOR  SOLOGUB  (b.  1863) 61 

The  Amphora 62 

The  Dragon 63 

"  When,  Heaving  on  the  Stormy  Waters  "  .  .  .64 

"  Austere  the  Music  of  My  Songs  " 65 

The  Devil's  Swings 66 

ZINAIDA  HIPPIUS  (b.  1869) '«  •  .68 

"  I  Seek  for  Rhythmic  Whisperings  "  ....  69 

Psyche 70 

Creation 71 

KONSTANTIN   BALMONT    (b.    1867) J2 

"  With  My  Fancy  I  Grasped  " 73 

Centuries  of  Centuries  Will  Pass 74 

In  the  White  Land 75 

Hymn  to  Fire          .                       .  '    • 76 

VALERY  BRUSOV  (b.  1873) 81 

The  Tryst 82 

"Radiant  Ranks  of  Seraphim" 83 

Benediction 84 

Inevitability      .        .        .       ,.      ., 85 

The  Fierce  Birds 86 

Eventide 87 

"Oh,  Cover" 88 

Saint  Sebastian 89 

The  Coming  Huns 90 


Contents  ix 

PAGE 

IVAN  BUNIN  (b.  1870) 92 

Russian  Spring 93 

A  Song 94 

The  God  of  Noon 95 

In  an  Empty  House 96 

Flax 97 

VYACHESLAV  IVANOV  (b.  1866) 98 

The  Catch 99 

Autumn 100 

Fountain 101 

The  Seeking  of  Self 102 

Complaint 103 

Narcissus:  A  Pompeiian  Bronze 104 

Funeral 105 

The  Holy  Rose 106 

Nomads  of  Beauty  .  . 107 

YURGIS  BALTRUSHAITIS  (b.  1873) 109 

The  Pendulum no 

The  Surf in 

MAXIMILIAN  VOLOSHIN  (b.  1877)  •  . "2 

Cimmerian  Twilight  I-III 113,  114,  115 

Sonnet  XV  (From  the  Sonnet-Cycle  "Lunaria")  .  116 

Stigmata 117 

MIKHAIL  KUZMIN  (b.  1877) 118 

"Now  Dry  Thy  Eyes" 119 

"  Night  Was  Done " 120 

From  Alexandrian  Songs  121 

GEORGY  CHULKOV  (b.  1879) 123 

"Purple  Autumn"  .  . 124 

ALEXANDER  BLOK  (1880-1921) 126 

"Into  Crimson  Dark" 127 

The  Unknown  Woman 128 

The  Lady  Unknown 129 

"A  Little  Black  Man" 131 

Russia 132 

"When  Mountain-ash" 133 

The  Scythians 134 

From  "The  Twelve "19 137 

ANDREY  BELY  (b.  1880) 138 

Messengers 139 

Euthanasia 140 

"You  Sit  on  the  Bed  There" 141 

VICTOR  HOFMAN  (1882-1911) 142 

"Still  Was  the  Evening" 143 

VASILY  BASHKIN  (c.  1880-1909) 144 

"Upon  the  Black  Brow  of  a  Cliff"  ....  145 


x  Contents 

PAGE 

SERGEY  GORODETZKY  (1884-1921) 146 

Yarila 147 

The  Birch  Tree 149 

ANNA  AKHMATOVA 150 

"Like  a  White  Stone" 151 

Confession 152 

"  Broad  Gold,  the  Evening " 153 

Prayer 154 

IGOR  SEVERYANIN 155 

And  It  Passed  by  the  Sea-Shore 156 

A  Russian  Song 157 

Spring  Apple-Tree 158 

NIKOLAI  KLUYEV 159 

A  Northern  Poem 160 

An  Izba  Song 161 

LUBOV  STOLITZA 162 

A  Lenten  One 163 

SERGEI  YESENIN 164 

"Upon  Green  Hills" 165 

"  Hopes  Painted  by  the  Autumn  Cold  "  .  .  .  .  166 

"  In  the  Clear  Cold  " 167 

Transfiguration:  III 168 

Z.  SHISHOVA 169 

"How  Strange,  Oh  God" 170 

PIOTR  ORESHIN 171 

Not  by  Hands  Created 172 

ANATOLY  MARIENHOF 176 

"  Savage,  Nomad  Hordes " 177 

October 178 


Introduction 

Modern  Russian  literature  took  its  rise  in  the  early 
nineteenth  century.  This  was,  more  or  less,  the  Rus- 
sian counterpart  of  the  Elizabethan  Age.  Energizing 
liberal  influences  were  in  the  air;  men's  pulses  were 
stirred  by  the  Napoleonic  drama;  a  national  self-con- 
sciousness came  into  being;  the  winds  of  a  new  world 
were  blowing  from  widened  horizons.  And  there  was 
the  same  coincidence  of  favorable  environment  with  the 
accident  of  genius.  Yet  if  the  English  Renaissance  found 
its  expression  in  drama,  it  is  notable  that  nascent  Russian 
literature  blossomed  in  lyricism.  England  had  her 
Shakespeare,  and  Russia  had  her  Pushkin, — with  a  dif- 
ference. 

He  is  placed  in  the  company  of  Dante,  Shakespeare 
and  Goethe  by  his  compatriots,  yet  even  they  admit  that 
he  lacks  the  universal  significance  of  his  elder  peers.  He 
remains,  however,  the  national  poet  acknowledged  as  the 
first  and  perhaps  the  greatest  literary  artist  of  his  coun- 
try, a  figure  upon  whom  more  admiration  and  scholarship 
have  been  lavished  than  upon  any  one  else.  Had  he 
been  accessible  to  the  outside  world,  its  current  concep- 
tions of  the  mood  and  manner  of  Russian  literature  would 
be  different.  The  Byronism  with  which  he  began,  early 
gave  place  to  a  reconciliation  with  reality  and  to  a  classic 
sobriety  which  made  Merimee  declare  him  "  An  Athenian 

XI 


xii  Introduction 

captive  among  the  Scythians."  The  intensity  of  his  pas- 
sionate nature  was  governed  by  a  sense  of  measure  and 
harmony.  His  poetry  has  that  quality  of  normalcy  and 
health  which  render  it  educative,  and  to  the  foreigner — 
uninteresting.  The  latter  may  agree  with  Flaubert  that 
the  Russian  master  is  "  flat,"  and  to  suspect  that  his  is 
the  unexciting  art  whose  motto  is  propria  communia 
dlcere. 

Pushkin  was  surrounded  by  a  Pleiad  of  lyricists,  whose 
work  was  of  a  minor  order,  but  was  yet  distinguished  by 
a  measure  of  originality.  Of  these  the  sombre  Baratynsky 
is  now  perhaps  best  remembered.  In  a  sense  Tyutchev 
too  belonged  to  this  group.  A  contemporary  of  Pushkin, 
he  was  under  his  influence.  Yet  he  survived  the  master 
by  many  years,  and  the  more  significant  part  of  his  unique 
contribution  to  Russian  poetry  was  written  much  later. 
Of  all  the  classicists,  Tyutchev  is  most  likely  to  find  a 
way  to  the  understanding  and  sympathy  of  the  outside 
world.  His  is  a  deep  and  authentic  voice.  Through  his 
poetry  blows  the  wind  of  his  thought,  as  a  breeze  bellies 
a  sail  to  a  certain  shape.  It  is  a  pantheistic  philosophy, 
instinct  with  the  profound  cosmic  sympathies  of  a  Chinese 
sage  on  his  lonely  mountain.  His  universe  was  the  battle- 
ground of  light  and  darkness.  Both  were  native  to  him. 
He  did  not  dismiss  the  "  ancient  chaos  "  with  the  facile 
gesture  of  tender-minded  idealism,  but  rather  saw  in  it 
the  dark  face  of  God. 

The  mantle  of  Pushkin  fell,  not  upon  Tyutchev,  who 
wrote  for  posterity,  but  rather  upon  Lermontov.  He  was 
an  ego-centric  creature,  with  a  romantic  nostalgia  for  the 
supersensuous.  His  lyricism  is  informed  with  a  grace- 


Introduction  xiii 

ful  demonism  and  a  proud  pessimism  which  naturally 
endear  him  to  a  youthful  audience. 

Lermontov  revolted  not  against  the  Czar  of  all  the 
Russias,  but  against  the  God  of  heaven  and  earth.  Yet 
the  growing  civic  bias  made  it  possible  to  put  a  social 
interpretation  upon  the  disquietude  which  pervades  his 
work.  Thus  the  forensic  Nekrasov,  who  in  the  next 
generation  voiced  the  civic  conscience  of  an  epoch  of  re- 
form, is  considered  to  have  issued  from  Lermontov. 
Nekrasov's  troubled  and  uneven  verse  dwelt  with  the 
miseries  of  the  peasant  and  the  proletarian.  It  cele- 
brated the  cause  of  the  masses,  and  made  itself  the  vehicle 
for  the  peccavi  of  the  gentry,  aware  of  its  outstanding 
debt  to  the  people.  The  age  was  also  glad  to  give  laurels 
to  the  folk-poets,  such  as  Koltzov  and  Nikitin. 

The  sixties  and  seventies — the  period  in  which  Nekrasov 
flourished — harnessed  the  literary  Niagara  to  political 
action.  The  age  felt  that  life  is  real,  life  is  earnest,  and 
that  art  is  not  its  goal.  The  permanent  abolition  of  serf- 
dom was  coincident  with  the  temporary  abolition  of 
aesthetics.  The  very  existence  of  a  socially  indifferent 
poetry  was  called  into  question.  In  this  unfriendly  atmos- 
phere a  group  of  poets  nevertheless  carried  on  the  Pushkin 
tradition  of  self-sufficient  lyricism.  Maikov,  Foeth,  Alexey 
Tolstoy  and,  to  a  certain  extent,  Polonsky,  all  deriving 
from  the  idealism  of  the  forties,  stand  out  unrelated  to 
the  period  in  which  they  wrote.  These  shared  with  the 
French  Parnassians  an  allegiance  to  the  dogma  of  art 
for  art's  sake,  and  Maikov  approached  their  plasticity  and 
impassivity.  ./Esthetes  are  inimical  to  revolution,  not 
because  they  love  justice  less,  but  because  they  love 


xiv  Introduction 

beauty  more.  What  defined  the  isolation  of  these  poets 
was  the  fact  that  they  belonged  to  the  conservative  camp. 

Foeth  developed  a  great  lyrical  activity  toward  the 
close  of  his  life,  in  the  eighties.  Those  were  years  of 
social  stagnation  and  prolific,  pale  poetry.  It  was  only 
in  the  next  decade,  when  the  Yellow  Book  was  blooming 
on  London  bookstalls  and  the  sunflowers  on  London 
lapels,  that  the  first  signs  of  a  literary,  and  primarily  lyric 
revival  showed  themselves  in  Russia.  It  was  preceded  by 
proclamations,  somewhat  like  a  king  who  is  not  too  sure 
of  his  welcome.  The  vanguard  of  theorists  included 
Volynsky,  Minsky  and  Merezhkovsky.  Here,  reversing 
the  natural  order,  poetics  came  before  poetry.  The  cham- 
pions of  modernism  revolted  against  the  traditional  sub- 
servience of  literature  to  social  progress.  They  asserted 
the  autonomy  and  primacy  of  art,  and  offered  the  milk 
of  mysticism  to  the  soul  starved  on  positivist  fare.  Above 
all  they  preached  an  individualism,  whose  watchword  was 
Fais  ce  que  tu  voldras,  and  which  took  to  its  heart  Stir- 
ner's  anarchy  and  Nietzsche's  a-moralism. 

Balmont,  Brusov  and  Sologub  were  the  leading  poets 
who  initiated  the  practice  of  what  Minsky  and  Merezh- 
kovsky had  been  preaching,  and  who  founded  a  school, 
in  the  loose  sense  of  the  term.  This  was  the  symbolist, 
or  as  some  prefer  to  call  it,  neo-romantic  school.  They 
were  clearly  inspired  by  foreign  models,  and  many  de- 
clared the  whole  new  poetry  a  warmed-over  French  dish. 
Yet  the  spontaneous  and  indigenous  character  of  the 
movement  is  now  beyond  question,  its  studied  eccentricity 
notwithstanding.  It  was  only  for  a  short  time  that  it 
showed  the  earmarks  of  western  decadence,  although  its 


Introduction  xv 

detractors  persisted  in  the  term.  Anti-social  prejudice,  a 
toying  with  satanism,  and  concentration  on  sex  were  but 
a  temporary  phase.  The  decadent  aspect  of  Russian 
modernism  is  best  exemplified  by  Sologub,  an  exasperated 
solipsist,  living  in  a  sick,  fantasmal  world. 

The  heterogeneity  and  complexity  of  the  movement  can 
hardly  be  exaggerated.  Each  writer  is  a  law  unto  him- 
self. Yet  all  share  a  fevered  intensity  and  the  literary 
method  of  symbolism.  To  the  true  symbolist  the  measure 
of  a  verse  echoes  the  song  the  morning  stars  sing  together. 
He  posits  a  correspondence  between  sensuous  and  mystic 
realities,  using  imagery  as  the  sign  of  a  remote  and 
transcendent  significance.  It  remained  for  the  following 
generation  thus  to  develop  the  religious  implications  of 
the  theory.  As  for  Balmont,  with  his  fluent  spontaneity, 
and  Brusov,  in  his  more  slow  and  solid  achievement,  they 
are  chiefly  concerned  with  problems  of  form  and  with  the 
cult  of  a  beauty  founded  upon  a  flight  from  reality.  This 
holds  good  for  the  sinister  magic  of  Sologub  in  his  early 
work.  All  three,  especially  Brusov,  are  conscious  crafts- 
men, with  an  authentic  musical  gift.  They  have  greatly 
enriched  the  medium  which  they  employ. 

While  the  symbolist  school  united  the  best  talents, 
there  were  of  course  poets  who  remained  extra  muros. 
The  most  important  of  them  is  Bunin,  a  lyricist  of  rare 
economy  and  sensitiveness  to  color.  He  carries  on  the 
classic  tradition,  remote  from  the  violences  and  vagaries 
of  his  fellows. 

A  curious  incident  in  the  history  of  Russian  symbolism 
is  the  career  of  Alexander  Dobrolubov.  One  of  the 
earliest  disciples  of  the  French  decadents,  he  ended  as  a 


xvi  Introduction 

sectarian  prophet.  He  lived  in  a  coffin-shaped  room, 
papered  in  black,  where  he  sought  Baudelaire's  "  paradis 
artificiels"  by  consuming  opium  and  smoking  hashish, 
and  whence  he  issued,  clad  in  black  even  to  his  eternal 
gloves,  to  preach  suicide  to  his  fellow-students.  He  be- 
came in  the  end  a  holy  vagabond,  wearing  the  coarse 
clothes  of  the  Volga  peasant,  and  leading  a  large  mystic 
sect.  Dobrolubov's  evolution  is  to  a  certain  extent  typi- 
cal of  the  development  of  the  symbolist  movement.  This, 
beginning  with  a  revolt  against  the  tyranny  of  utilitarian 
morality,  ended  with  the  reassertion  of  the  ineluctable 
ethos  and  a  deepened  mysticism. 

Synchronously  with  the  revolution  of  1905  a  group  of 
younger  men  within  the  fold  began  to  transvalue  the 
symbolists'  transvaluations,  aided  and  abetted  by  the  older 
symbolists  themselves.  Chief  among  the  newcomers  were 
Ivanov,  Bely,  Blok  and  Voloshin.  They  were  impatient 
of  the  cult  of  beauty  and  looked  askance  at  the  gambols 
of  the  free  individual.  Their  poetry  is  passionate  meta- 
physics, groping  toward  religious  ultimates.  Spiritually 
deriving  from  Solovyov  and  Dostoyevsky,  they  are  en- 
gaged with  religion  and,  to  a  large  extent,  with  the 
messianic  role  of  the  Russian  people.  In  Ivanov  and 
professedly  in  Chulkov,  mysticism  is  wedded  to  a  curious 
collectivism.  Ivanov  declares  his  verse  to  be  the  carven 
crystal  cup  for  the  sacred  wine  of  communal  religious 
consciousness.  While  in  France  symbolism  contented 
itself  with  the  part  of  a  literary  method,  in  Russia  it 
tended  to  become  a  philosophy  and  even  an  ethics. 

Problems  of  technique  as  such  are  no  longer  in  the 
foreground.  Symbolism  is  now  considered  the  charac- 


Introduction  xvii 

teristic  of  all  poetry.  Substance  is  what  these  sophisti- 
cated lyricists  are  seeking.  And  so  we  find  them  turning 
to  the  imperishable  gods  of  Hellas,  wandering  down 
exotic  vistas,  exploring  with  Gorodetzky  the  native  folk- 
lore, embracing  with  Kuzmin  the  delights  of  stylization. 
A  doctrinaire  fury  rides  all  these  poets.  They  are  in- 
veterate preface-writers,  and,  what  is  worse,  do  not  leave 
their  prefaces  entirely  out  of  their  art,  forgetting  that 
philosophy,  in  Symons'  words,  is  the  dung  which  lies  at 
the  roots  of  poetry. 

Shortly  before  the  war  the  symbolist  impetus  was  felt 
to  have  spent  itself.  There  was  a  general  dissatisfaction 
with  the  spirit  which  informed  it.  The  poets,  says  a 
Russian  critic,  were  tired  of  plumbing  the  ultimate  depths 
of  the  soul,  and  of  daily  ascending  the  Golgotha  of  mys- 
ticism. After  the  ecstasies  came  the  desire  for  the  ice- 
water  of  simplicity.  No  longer  expressing  mystery  in 
music,  the  poets  sought  the  limited,  precise,  concrete  image. 
This  movement  manifested  itself  in  the  Acmeist  secession. 
Grouped  around  a  publishing  firm,  known  as  the  Guild 
of  Poets,  which  has  this  year  been  revived,  the  Acmeists 
or  Adamists,  led  by  Gumilev,  Akhmatova  and  Gorodetzky, 
attacked  symbolism,  to  celebrate  raw  reality.  Proclaim- 
ing the  primitive  vision  of  a  Gauguin,  they  insisted  on 
immediate  contact  with  the  tangible,  visible,  audible 
world.  The  coterie  did  not  write  much  more  than  its 
manifesto,  though  its  method  may  be  discovered  in  the 
work  of  the  later  "  imazhinist "  (imagist)  group,  of 
which  Yesenin  and  Marienhof  are  representative  mem- 
bers. These  build  their  poetics  upon  the  concept  of  the 
autonomous  image,  regarded  as  the  end  of  all  poetry. 


xviii  Introduction 

One  of  their  number  has  recently  declared  that  a  poem 
must  be  not  an  organized  entity,  but  rather  a  succession 
of  such  self-sufficient  images,  moving  as  in  dreams. 

A  sensational  career  awaited  the  other  post-symbolist 
development,  futurism.  It  originated  with  the  cubo- 
futurists  in  Moscow  in  1911  and  a  year  later  the  Petro- 
grad  ego-futurists  issued  their  manifesto.  The  difference 
between  them  was  rather  like  that  between  Tweedledum 
and  Tweedledee,  the  one  hitting  everything  it  could  see — 
when  it  got  really  excited,  the  other  hitting  everything 
within  reach,  whether  it  could  see  it  or  not.  They  hit 
out  less  to  epater  le  bourgeois  than  professedly  to  discard 
all  the  canons  of  art  and  to  destroy  toothless  Ratio. 
Their  proclaimed  desire  was  to  raze  the  past  and  build 
the  present  on  nothing.  Their  poetics  provide  for  a 
language  consisting  of  elements  having  an  audible  and  a 
visual,  but  no  intellectual  value.  This  is  merely  an 
ideal  which,  luckily  for  the  rest  of  us,  their  poetry  does 
not  always  achieve. 

"  Let  us  gorge  ourselves  with  the  void,"  says  one  of 
them.  The  poetic  gift  can  thrive  even  on  this  futile  diet. 
Through  their  cacophony  is  sometimes  heard  the  shrill 
and  raucous  voice  of  a  machine-made  age,  their  distorted 
language  occasionally  mirrors  a  time  which  is  out  of 
joint,  and  their  violently  eccentric  imagery  wrests  new 
meanings  from  old  commonplaces,  as  in  Mayakovsky's 
line :  "  A  bald  lantern  voluptuously  takes  off  the  blue 
stocking  from  the  street."  Naturally,  they  resist  trans- 
lation, except  in  the  case  of  Severyanin,  the  early  leader 
of  the  Petrograd  group,  whose  work  is,  however,  not 
typical. 


Introduction  xix 

Futurism  showed  no  great  vitality,  and  would  prob- 
ably have  shared  the  fate  of  a  fashion,  were  it  not  for 
the  revolution.  Its  unabashed  iconoclasm,  its  plebeian 
exuberance,  may  account  for  its  recent  vogue.  Its  man- 
nerisms are  noticeable  in  the  work  of  men  who  do  not 
strictly  adhere  to  the  coterie,  such  as  Oreshin  and 
Marienhof. 

It  is  worth  noting  that  the  literature  of  the  revolution 
is  chiefly  verse.  The  surviving  representatives  of  classi- 
cism and  symbolism,  with  the  possible  exception  of  An- 
drey  Bely,  continue  their  work  without  developing  it. 
In  addition  to  them  and  to  the  irruption  of  the  futurists, 
there  are  the  peasant  poets,  headed  by  Kluyev,  and  a 
large  body  of  workman  poets.  The  revolution  has  ex- 
tended the  class  principle  to  aesthetics  and  takes  special 
pains  to  promote  the  literary  expression  of  the  masses. 
Yet  proletarian  verse  is  by  no  means  a  new  phenomenon 
in  Russia.  From  1908  to  1915  fifty  volumes  of  such 
verse  found  their  way  to  publication.  The  crudity  and 
naivete  of  the  workmen's  poetry  produced  since  the  revo- 
lution is  redeemed  by  a  hard-handed  grasp  on  reality. 
The  return  to  realism  is  the  promise  of  a  new  develop- 
ment in  Russian  poetry.  Like  all  living  things,  poetry 
endures  only  through  change. 


Alexander  Pushkin 
(1799-1837) 

Alexander  Pushkin  was  born  the  last  year  of  the  eighteenth 
century.  He  died  at  the  age  of  Byron.  Within  these  thirty- 
seven  years  he  crowded  the  activity  of  a  great  and  authentic 
initiator  in  literature. 

His  mother's  grandfather  was  a  Negro  (or  an  Arab)  who,  the 
story  goes,  was  bought  for  Peter  the  Great  at  Constantinople 
for  a  bottle  of  rum,  and  who  married  a  German.  His  father 
was  descended  from  an  ancient  Russian  family.  The  poet, 
inheritor  of  these  curious  strains,  was  educated  chiefly  by 
ineffectual  French  tutors  and  an  old  Russian  nurse.  At  eighteen 
he  graduated  from  an  aristocratic  school  at  Tsarskoe  Selo,  an 
indifferent  scholar,  but  a  writer  with  a  reputation  for  light  and 
lewd  verse.  The  next  three  years  he  spent  at  the  northern 
capital,  where  "  all  the  vices  dance  upon  the  knees  of  folly." 
He  was  nominally  attached  to  the  Foreign  Office,  but  was 
chiefly  sowing  his  wild  oats.  By  his  liberal  velleities  and 
merciless  epigrams  he  stung  the  authorities  to  the  Countercheck 
Quarrelsome,  and  the  enfant  terrible  was  shipped  south  and 
subsequently  to  his  own  estate.  During  his  not  too  disagree- 
able southern  exile  he  divided  his  time  with  persistent  unfaith- 
fulness between  the  maids  and  the  Muse.  Back  in  Petersburg, 
in  1826,  he  was  lionized  by  the  ladies  and  harassed  by  the 
censors.  At  thirty-two  he  married  a  girl  nearly  half  his  age, 
with  the  face  of  a  madonna  and  the  soul  of  a  brainless  coquette. 
To  provide  for  her  needs,  the  poet  worked  feverishly,  and  that 
she  might  be  received  at  court,  he  secured  a  court  appointment. 
Financial  cares  and  domestic  worries  soon  saddened  and  aged 
him.  He  was  destroyed  by  the  aristocratic  philistines  whose 
good  graces  he  half-unwillingly  sought.  An  intrigue,  involving 
Pushkin's  wife  and  her  brother-in-law,  Baron  Dantes 
(D'Anthes),  resulted  in  a  duel  in  which  the  poet  was  mortally 
wounded,  at  the  age  of  thirty-seven. 

Pushkin's  share  of  this  volume  is  no  indication  of  his  relative 
significance  in  the  advance  of  Russian  poetry.  He  is  an  over- 
shadowing figure,  and  his  work  is  an  essential  part  of  Russia's 

3 


4  Alexander  Pushkin 

literary  endowment.  Yet  an  anthology  which  is  not  primarily 
concerned  with  historic  values,  and  which  is  addressed  to  a 
foreign  audience,  can  present  but  a  few  of  his  facets  to  the 
reluctant  light  of  a  sophisticated  intelligence. 


Alexander  Pushkin 


A  NEREID 

Among  the  glaucous  waves  that  kiss  gold  Tauris'  beaches 
I  saw  a  Nereid,  as  dawn  flushed  heaven's  reaches. 
I  barely  dared  to  breathe,  hid  in  the  olive  trees, 
While  the  young  demigoddess  rose  above  the  seas; 
Her  young,  her  swan-white  breast  above  the  waters  lifting, 
From   her  soft  hair  she  wrung  the  foam  in  garlands 
drifting. 


Alexander  Pushkin 

"  BEHOLD  A  SOWER  WENT  FORTH 
TO  SOW" 

With  freedom's  seed  the  desert  sowing, 
I  walked  before  the  morning  star; 
From  pure  and  guiltless  ringers  throwing — 
Where  slavish  plows  had  left  a  scar — 
The  fecund  seed,  the  procreator; 
Oh  vain  and  sad  disseminator, 
I  learned  then  what  lost  labors  are.  .  .  . 
Graze  if  you  will,  you  peaceful  nations, 
Who  never  rouse  at  honor's  horn! 
Should  flocks  heed  freedom's  invocations? 
Their  part  is  to  be  slain  or  shorn, 
Their  dower  the  yoke  their  sires  have  worn 
Through  snug  and  sheepish  generations. 


Alexander  Pushkin 


THREE  SPRINGS1 

Three  springs  in  life's  unbroken  joyless  desert 

Mysteriously  issue  from  the  sands: 

The  spring  of  youth,  uneven  and  rebellious, 

Bears  swift  its  sparkling  stream  through  sunny  lands; 

Life's  exiles  drink  the  wave  of  inspiration 

That  swells  the  limpid  fount  of  Castaly; 

But  'tis  the  deep,  cold  wellspring  of  oblivion 

That  slakes  most  sweetly  thirst  and  ecstasy. 

1  Tr.  by  Avrahm  Yarmolinsky. 


Alexander  Pushkin 


THE  PROPHET 

I  dragged  my  flesh  through  desert  gloom, 
Tormented  by  the  spirit's  yearning, 
And  saw  a  six-winged  Seraph  loom 
Upon  the  footpath's  barren  turning. 
And  as  a  dream  in  slumber  lies 
So  light  his  finger  on  my  eyes, — 
My  wizard  eyes  grew  wide  and  wary: 
An  eagle's,  startled  from  her  eyrie. 
He  touched  my  ears,  and  lo!  a  sea 
Of  storming  voices  burst  on  me. 
I  heard  the  whirling  heavens'  tremor, 
The  angels'  flight  and  soaring  sweep, 
The  sea-snakes  coiling  in  the  deep, 
The  sap  the  vine's  green  tendrils  carry. 
And  to  my  lips  the  Seraph  clung 
And  tore  from  me  my  sinful  tongue, 
My  cunning  tongue  and  idle-worded; 
The  subtle  serpent's  sting  he  set 
Between  my  lips — his  hand  was  wet, 
His  bloody  hand  my  mouth  begirded. 
And  with  a  sword  he  cleft  my  breast 
And  took  the  heart  with  terror  turning, 
And  in  my  gaping  bosom  pressed 
A  coal  that  throbbed  there,  black  and  burning. 
Upon  the  wastes,  a  lifeless  clod, 
I  lay,  and  heard  the  voice  of  God: 


Alexander  Pushkin 

"  Arise,  oh  prophet,  watch  and  hearken, 
And  with  my  Will  thy  soul  engird, 
Through  lands  that  dim  and  seas  that  darken, 
Burn  thou  men's  hearts  with  this,  my  Word." 


IO  Alexander  Pushkin 

VERSES  WRITTEN  DURING  A  SLEEPLESS 
NIGHT 

Sleep  I  cannot  find,  nor  light: 

Everywhere  is  dark  and  slumber, 

Only  weary  tickings  number 

The  slow  hours  of  the  night. 

Parca,  jabbering,  woman-fashion, 

Sleeping  night,  without  compassion, 

Life,  who  stirs  like  rustling  mice, 

Why  encage  me  in  thy  vise? 

Why  the  whispering  insistence, — 

Art  thou  but  the  pale  persistence 

Of  a  day  departed  twice? 

What  black  failures  dost  thou  reckon  ? 

Dost  thou  prophesy  or  beckon  ? 

I  would  know  whence  thou  art  sprung, 

I  would  study  thy  dark  tongue  .  .  . 


Alexander  Pushkin  II 


WORK 

Here  is  the  long-bided  hour :  the  labor  of  years  is  accom- 
plished. 
Why  should  this  sadness  unplumbed  secretly  weigh  on 

my  heart? 

Is  it,  my  work  being  done,  I  stand  like  a  laborer,  useless, 
One  who  has  taken  his  pay,  alien  to  unwonted  tasks? 
Is  it  the  work  I  regret,  the  silent  companion  of  midnight, 
Friend  of  the  golden-haired  Dawn,  friend  of  the  gods 
of  the  hearth? 


12  Alexander  Pushkin 


MADONNA 

Not  by  old  masters,  rich  on  crowded  walls, 

My  house  I  ever  sought  to  ornament, 

That  gaping  guests  might  marvel  while  they  bent 

To  connoisseurs  with  condescending  drawls. 

Amidst  slow  labors,  far  from  garish  halls, 

Before  one  picture  I  would  fain  have  spent 

Eternity:  where  the  calm  canvas  thralls 

As  though  the  Virgin  and  our  Saviour  leant 

From  regnant  clouds,  the  Glorious  and  the  Wise, 

The  meek  and  hallowed,  with  unearthly  eyes, 

Beneath  the  palm  of  Zion,  these  alone.  .  .  . 

My  wish  is  granted:  God  has  shown  thy  face 

To  me;  here,  my  Madonna,  thou  shalt  throne: 

Most  pure  exemplar  of  the  purest  grace. 


Yevgeny  Baratynsky 
(1800-1844) 

"  It  is  a  little  cup,  but  it  is  nay  own,"  thus  might  Baratynsky 
sum  up  the  small  perfection  of  his  art.  He  belonged  to  Pushkin's 
school,  but  was  not  eclipsed  by  the  master.  His  ceuvre  consists 
of  one  slender  volume  of  lyrics.  These  are  marked  by  the 
originality  of  the  discriminating  eclectic,  by  a  strong  conscience 
for  form,  and  by  the  obtruding  intellection  of  a  born  pessimist. 

Like  most  of  the  Russian  litterateurs  of  the  first  half  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  with  which  he  was  born,  Baratynsky  be- 
longed to  the  kept  classes.  An  infringement  of  the  eighth  com- 
mandment while  he  was  at  school  (the  Corps  of  Pages)  reduced 
this  son  of  a  senator  to  a  mere  private.  The  experience  may 
have  accented  his  gloomy  temperament.  Aside  from  this,  the 
outward  circumstances  of  his  life,  including  his  marriage,  were 
happy,  and  therefore  have  no  history.  His  last  years,  however, 
were  saddened  by  the  consciousness  of  estrangement  from  the 
rising  generation. 


14  Yevgeny  Baratynsky 

PRAYER 

King  of  Heavens!     Release 

My  sick  soul  to  its  peace! 

For  the  errors  of  earth 

Send  oblivion's  dearth ; 

To  thy  stern  paradise 

Give  my  heart  strength  to  rise. 


Alexey  Koltzov 
(1809-1842) 

Koltzov  might  best  be  described  as  a  tame  Burns.  The 
adjective  applies  to  the  poetry  more  than  to  the  poet,  though 
even  here  we  find  a  soberer  man.  He  was  a  cattle-dealer  and 
the  son  of  a  cattle-dealer:  a  cross  between  a  trader  and  a 
cow-puncher.  He  spent  his  life  in  the  sordid  surroundings  of 
his  native  town,  with  the  exception  of  a  few  visits  to  the  two 
capitals.  There  he  met  the  literati  of  the  day,  dinnered  wi' 
lairds,  and  was  stared  at  in  fashionable  salons.  He  returned 
with  a  swollen  head,  which  caused  him  a  great  deal  of  misery 
at  home.  The  effect  of  his  intercourse  with  the  intellectuals  was 
seen  to  be  equally  lamentable  in  his  attempts  at  philosophic 
poetry.  His  last  years  were  embittered  by  poverty,  neglect,  and 
a  tragic  love  which  ended  in  a  lurid  disease. 

His  art  maintained  his  umbilical  connection  with  the  people. 
He  carries  on  the  tradition  of  the  Russian  folk-song,  whether 
the  stuff  of  his  lyrics  is  the  works  and  days  of  the  peasant,  or 
themes  of  universal  emotional  appeal.  He  uses  the  free  rhythms 
of  the  folk-song  and,  curiously  enough,  his  favorite  metre  coin- 
cides with  that  of  the  Sophoclean  choruses.  Of  his  one  hundred 
and  twenty-four  poems,  three-fourths  have  been  set  to  music 
by  some  one  hundred  Russian  composers,  among  whom  are 
Glinka  and  Rimsky-Korsakoff. 


1 6  Alexey  Koltzov 

AN  OLD  MAN'S  SONG 

I  shall  saddle  a  horse, 
A  swift  courser,  he, 
I  shall  fly,  I  shall  rush, 
As  the  hawk  is  keen, 
Over  fields,  over  seas, 
To  a  distant  land. 
I  shall  overtake  there 
My  young  youth  again. 
I  shall  make  myself  spruce 
Be  a  blade  again, 
I  shall  make  a  fine  show 
For  the  girls  again. 
But  alas !  no  road  leads 
To  the  past  we've  left, 
And  the  sun  will  not  rise 
For  us  in  the  west. 


Mikhail  Lermontov 
(18x4-1841) 

Whether  or  not  the  semi-legendary  Thomas  of  Erceldoune, 
who  received  his  poetic  gift  from  the  fairies,  was  Lermontov's 
ancestor,  it  is  certain  that  the  Russian  poet  traced  his  lineage 
back  to  George  Learmont  of  Scotland,  who  settled  in  Russia  in 
the  seventeenth  century.  His  grandchildren  claimed  that  they 
were  descended  from  that  Learmont  who  fought  with  Malcolm 
against  Macbeth. 

Lermontov's  immediate  heredity  was  rather  poor.  His  hys- 
terical mother  died  in  1817,  when  he  was  three  years  old, 
and  he  grew  up  as  the  bone  of  contention  between  his  father 
and  his  wealthy,  overbearing  grandmother.  On  her  estate  the 
spoiled  darling  received  his  early  education,  of  the  usual  im- 
ported type.  He  was  extraordinarily  precocious  in  both  love 
and  literature.  Between  1828  and  1832  he  had  written  300 
lyrics,  15  long  narrative  poems  and  3  dramas.  He  was  little 
more  than  a  boy  when  he  graduated  from  a  military  college  at 
St.  Petersburg,  having  previously  spent  two  years  at  the  Uni- 
versity of  Moscow,  and  plunged  into  "  a  life  of  poetry,  drowned 
in  champagne."  His  technique  as  a  heart-breaker  was  only 
excelled  by  his  power  as  a  poet,  and  that,  in  spite  of  a  repellent 
exterior.  Upon  Pushkin's  death  Lermontov's  obituary  poem 
brought  him  rapid  fame  and  exile  to  the  Caucasus.  This 
region  was  to  the  poets  of  Russia  what  Italy  has  been  to  those 
of  England.  The  romantic  glamor  of  the  enchanted  land  suf- 
fused Lermontov's  work.  One  of  his  flames  called  him  a 
Prometheus  chained  to  the  rocks  of  the  Caucasus,  but  he  was 
more  like  a  pendulum  swinging  between  them  and  the  beau 
monde  of  St.  Petersburg.  He  indulged  inordinately  in  the  sad- 
ism of  sarcasm,  and  was  as  well  hated  by  the  men  as  he  was 
loved  by  the  women.  Spared  by  the  bullets  of  the  mountaineers, 
Lermontov  was  killed  in  a  duel  with  an  outraged  colleague, 
only  a  year  older  at  his  death  than  was  John  Keats. 

Yet  this  brilliant  bully  and  egotistic  rake  was,  after  his  own 
fashion,  a  knight  of  the  Holy  Grail  and  a  poetic  genius  such  as 
rarely  graces  any  language. 

17 


1 8  Mikhail  Lermontov 

THE  ANGEL 

Through  the  heavens  of  midnight  an  angel  was  sped 

Who  lifted  his  chant  as  he  fled. 
The  moon  and  the  clouds  and  the  stars  leaned  to  hear 

The  song  rising  holy  and  clear. 

He  sang  of  the  spirits,  the  sinless,  the  blest, 

Who  softly  in  Paradise  rest. 
Of  the  gardens  of  God,  and  of  God  was  his  song, 

Ringing  true  as  a  heavenly  gong. 

He  bore  a  young  soul  to  the  dark  gates  of  birth, 

Toward  the  travailing,  sorrowful  earth. 
And  flying,  he  sang,  and  the  eager  soul  heard 

The  deathless,  the  unuttered  Word. 

And  the  years  in  the  world  could  but  sadden  and  tire 

The  soul  filled  with  wondrous  desire. 
And  vainly  the  dull  songs  of  earth  would  have  stilled 

The  song  wherewith  heaven  had  thrilled. 


Mikhail  Lermontov  19 

THE  CUP  OF  LIFE 

We  drink  life's  cup  with  thirsty  lips, 
Our  eyes  shut  fast  to  fears; 
About  the  golden  rim  there  drips 
Our  staining  blood,  our  tears. 

But  when  the  last  swift  hour  comes  on, 
The  light  long  hid  is  lit, 
From  startled  eyes  the  band  is  gone, 
We  suffer  and  submit. 

It  is  not  our  part  to  possess 
The  cup  that  golden  gleamed. 
We  see  its  shallow  emptiness: 
We  did  not  drink — we  dreamed. 


2O  Mikhail  Lermontov 

GRATITUDE 

For  all,  I  thank  Thee,  I,  the  meek  remitter: 

For  passion's  secret  torments  without  end, 

The  kiss  of  venom,  and  the  tears  too  bitter, 

The  vengeful  enemy,  the  slanderous  friend, 

The  spirit's  ardor  on  the  desert  squandered, 

For  every  lash  of  life's  deceiving  thong; 

I  thank  Thee  for  the  wastes  where  I  have  wandered ; 

But  heed  Thou,  that  I  need  not  thank  Thee  long. 


Mikhail  Lermontov  21 


FROM  "THE  DAEMON"  (Part  I,  xv) 

On  the  sightless  seas  of  ether, 
Rudderless,  without  a  sail, 
Choirs  of  stars  uplift  their  voices, 
Where  the  mist-waves  rise  and  fail. 

Through  the  hemless  fields  of  heaven 
Wander  wide  and  tracelessly 
Clouds,  unshepherded,  unnumbered, 
Pale,  ephemeral  and  free. 

Hour  of  parting,  hour  of  meeting, 
Neither  gladden  them,  nor  fret; 
Theirs  no  yearning  toward  the  future, 
Theirs  no  haunting  of  regret. 

On  the  grim  day  of  disaster 
These  remember,  worlds  away: 
Be  beyond  earth's  reach  as  these  are, 
And  indifferent  as  they. 


22  Mikhail  Lermontov 


CAPTIVE  KNIGHT 

Silent  I  sit  by  the  prison's  high  window, 
Where  through  the  bars  the  blue  heavens  are  breaking. 
Flecks  in  the  azure,  the  free  birds  are  playing; 
Watching  them  fly  there,  my  shamed  heart  is  aching. 

But  on  my  sinful  lips  never  a  prayer, 
Never  a  song  in  the  praise  of  my  charmer; 
All  I  recall  are  far  fights  and  old  battles, 
My  heavy  sword  and  my  old  iron  armor. 

Now  in  stone  armor  I  hopelessly  languish, 

And  a  stone  helmet  my  hot  head  encases, 

This  shield  is  proof  against  arrows  and  sword-play, 

And  without  whip,  without  spur,  my  horse  races. 

Time  is  my  horse,  the  swift-galloping  charger, 
And  for  a  visor  this  bleak  prison  grating, 
Walls  of  my  prison  are  heavy  stone  armor; 
Shielded  by  cast-iron  doors,  I  am  waiting. 

Hurry,  oh  fast-flying  Time,  fly  more  quickly! 
In  my  new  armor  I  faint,  I  am  choking. 
I  shall  alight,  with  Death  holding  my  stirrup, 
Then  my  cold  face  from  this  visor  uncloaking. 


Fyodor  Tyutchev 
(1803-1873) 

Tyutchev  was  rediscovered  by  the  moderns  and  hailed  as 
the  great  fore-runner.  They  found  in  his  mentality  and  sensi- 
bility, as  well  as  in  his  technique,  elements  foreign  to  classic 
normalcy,  and  akin  to  their  own  anguished  metaphysics  and 
aesthetics.  The  two  hundred  short  lyrics,  which  are  all  the 
original  poetry  he  has  left  us,  exhibit  the  organic  coherence 
and  ordered  beauty  which  belong  to  fine  lyric  art.  The  origi- 
nality of  his  poems  consists  in  that  both  man's  routine  passions 
and  nature's  passionless  routine  are  sensed  in  ultimate,  cosmic 
terms. 

Tyutchev's  career  could  not  be  inferred  from  his  poetry. 
This  was  the  by-product  of  a  long  and  largely  conventional 
life.  He  was  a  sedate  bureaucrat  in  the  diplomatic  service,  a 
position  which  kept  him  in  Muenchen,  the  German  Athens,  dur- 
ing his  best  years.  He  proved  the  happiness  of  his  marriage 
to  a  Bavarian  aristocrat  by  marrying  again  shortly  after  her 
death.  When  he  was  on  the  shady  side  of  fifty  his  career  was 
seriously  injured  by  a  liaison  with  his  daughter's  teacher.  Dur- 
ing the  last  twenty  years  of  his  life  he  acted  as  censor,  a  posi- 
tion for  which  his  political  views  eminently  fitted  him.  He  be- 
lieved in  autocracy,  and  he  prophesied  that  Orthodox  Russia, 
at  the  head  of  the  united  Slavs,  would  be  the  sacred  arc  riding 
the  waves  of  the  western  revolutionary  deluge. 


24  Fyodor  Tyutchev 

TWILIGHT1 

Soft  the  dove-hued  shadows  mingle, 
Color  fades,  sound  droops  to  sleep. 
Life  and  motion  melt  to  darkness 
Swaying  murmurs  far  and  deep. 
But  the  night  moth's  languid  flitting 
Stirs  the  air  invisibly: 
Oh,  the  hour  of  wordless  longing; 
I  in  all,  and  all  in  me. 

Twilight — tranquil,  brooding  twilight, 
Course  through  me,  serene  and  smooth ; 
Quiet,  languid,  fragrant  twilight, 
Flood  all  depths,  all  sorrows  soothe, 
Every  sense  in  dark  and  cooling 
Self-forgetfulness  immerse, — 
Grant  that  I  may  taste  extinction 
In  the  dreaming  universe. 

1  Tr.  by  Avrahm  Yarmolinsky  and  Cecil  Cowdrey. 


Fyodor  Tyutchev  25 


"AS  OCEAN'S  STREAM" 

As  ocean's  stream  girdles  the  ball  of  earth, 
From  circling  seas  of  dream  man's  life  emerges, 
And  as  night  moves  in  silence  up  the  firth 
The  secret  tide  around  our  mainland  surges. 

The  voice  of  urgent  waters  softly  sounds; 
The  magic  skiff  uplifts  white  wings  of  wonder. 
The  tide  swells  swiftly  and  the  white  sail  rounds, 
Where  the  blind  waves  in  shoreless  darkness  thunder. 

And  the  wide  heavens,  starred  and  luminous, 
Out  of  the  deep  in  mystery  aspire. 
The  strange  abyss  is  burning  under  us; 
And  we  sail  onward,  and  our  wake  is  fire. 


26  Fyodor  Tyutchev 


SILENTIUM * 

Be  silent,  hidden,  and  conceal 
Whate'er  you  dream,  whate'er  you  feel. 
Oh,  let  your  visions  rise  and  die 
Within  your  heart's  unfathomed  sky, 
Like  stars  that  take  night's  darkened  route. 
Admire  and  scan  them  and  be  mute. 

The  heart  was  born  dumb;  who  can  sense 
Its  tremors,  recondite  and  tense? 
And  who  can  hear  its  silent  cry? 
A  thought  when  spoken  is  a  lie. 
Uncovered  springs  men  will  pollute, — 
Drink  hidden  waters,  and  be  mute. 

Your  art  shall  inner  living  be. 
The  world  within  your  fantasy 
A  kingdom  is  that  waits  its  Saul. 
The  outer  din  shall  still  its  call, 
Day's  glare  its  secret  suns  confute. 
Oh,  quaff  its  singing,  and  be  mute. 

1  Tr.  by  Avrahm  Yarmolinsky. 


Fyodor  Tyutchev  27 

AUTUMN  EVENING 

The  light  of  autumn  evenings  seems  a  screen, 
Some  mystery  with  tender  glamor  muffling.  .  .  . 
The  trees  in  motley,  cloaked  in  eerie  sheen, 
The  scarlet  leaves  that  languid  airs  are  ruffling, 
The  still  and  misty  azure,  vaguely  far, 
Above  the  earth  that  waits  her  orphan  sorrow, 
And  bitter  winds  in  gusty  vagrance  are 
Forerunners  of  a  bleak,  storm-driven  morrow. 
The  woods  are  waning;  withered  is  the  sun; 
Earth  shows  the  smile  of  fading,  meekly  tender 
As  the  high  shyness  of  a  suffering  one, 
In  noble  reticence  of  sad  surrender. 


28  Fyodor  Tyutchev 


JULY  14,  AT  NIGHT 

Not  yet   cooled,    the  windless   night 
Of  July  shone  strangely  still. 
Earth  lay  dim,  and  fitful  light 
In  the  skyey,  storm-filled  height 
Trembled  over  field  and  hill. 

So  might  lidded  eyes  unclose, 
And  between  vast  lashes  burn 
Glances  flaming  and  morose, 
Over  earth's  remote  repose, 
Mute  as  lightning,  swift  and  stern. 


Fyodor  Tyutchev  29 


"OH,  THOU,  MY  WIZARD  SOUL" 

Oh,  thou,  my  wizard  soul,  oh,  heart 
That  whelming  agony  immerses, 
The  threshold  of  two  universes 
In  cleaving  these,  tears  thee  apart. 

And  so  two  alien  worlds  are  thine: 
Thy  day  of  morbid  passionate  living, 
Thy  sleep,  vague  revelations  giving 
Of  spirits  secret  and  divine. 

Then  let  the  tortured  bosom  beat 
With  fatal  passion  and  vagary; 
The  soul  is  fain,  even  as  Mary, 
To  cling  forever  to  Christ's  feet. 


Nikolai  Nekrasov 
(1821-1877) 

Nekrasov's  literary  career  began  with  a  series  of  prose  pot- 
boilers, written  while  he  was  starving  in  St.  Petersburg.  He 
had  come  to  this  city  as  a  boy  of  seventeen  in  1838,  to  follow 
the  military  profession.  Against  the  will  of  his  father,  a  brute 
of  an  hobereau,  the  young  man  preferred  the  university  to  the 
army,  and  was  forthwith  thrown  on  his  own  resources.  A 
penniless  hack,  he  became  before  long  a  popular  poet  and  the 
thriving  publisher  of  the  two  greatest  radical  monthlies  in 
Russia. 

As  a  child  he  had  heard  the  bitter  songs  of  the  Volga  barge- 
towers.  In  the  capital  he  had  lived  with  filth  and  famine. 
He  introduced  these  elements  into  his  work.  Yet  though  he 
suffered  with  the  people  in  his  poems,  he  enjoyed  his  prosperity, 
in  spite  of  ethical  scruples. 

His  work  is  marked  by  a  strong  social  and  civic  preoccupa- 
tion. He  declared  that  this  interest  interfered  with  his  poetry. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  his  "  Muse  of  Vengeance  and  Wrath  "  was 
an  uncertain  creature.  He  threw  untransmuted  into  his  poetry 
the  raw  stuff  of  satire  and  feuilleton,  of  parody  and  pamphlet. 
At  his  best  he  can  move  the  reader  with  his  stinging  pity 
and  his  passionate  self-scorn.  He  is  perhaps  chiefly  remembered 
by  his  epic:  "Who  Lives  Happily  in  Russia?",  which  holds 
in  its  vast  frame  the  very  essence  of  the  misery  and  the  thwarted 
vigor  of  the  Russian  peasant. 


Nikolai  Nekrasov  31 

"  THE  CAPITALS  ARE  ROCKED  WITH 
THUNDER " 

The  capitals  are  rocked  with  thunder 
Of  orators  in  wordy  feuds. 
But  in  the  depths  of  Russia,  yonder, 
An  age-old  awful  silence  broods. 
Only  the  wind  in  wayside  willows, 
Coming  and  going,  does  not  cease; 
And  corn-stalks  touch  in  curving  billows 
The  earth  that  cherishes  and  pillows, 
Through  endless  fields  of  changeless  peace. 


32  Nikolai  Nekrasov 


MY  POEMS!  WITNESSES  OF  UNAVAILING" 

My  poems!    Witnesses  of  unavailing 

Tears  for  the  sad  earth  shed! 
Born  in  the  moment  when  the  soul  is  failing, 

And  by  the  storm-winds  bred; 
Against  men's  hearts  you  beat  with  wistful  wailing 

Like  waves  on  cliffs  as  dead. 


Nikolai  Nekrasov  33 

THE  SALT  SONG 
(From  "  Who  Can  Live  Happily  in  Russia?  ") 

God's  will  be  done! 
No  food  he'll  try, 
The  youngest  son — 
Look,  he  will  die. 

A  crust  I  got, 
Another  bit — 
He  touched  it  not: 
"Put  salt  on  it!" 

Of  salt  no  shred, 
No  pinch  I  see! 
"  Take  flour,  instead," 
God  whispered  me. 

Two  bites,  or  one — 
His  mouth  he  pouts, 
The  little  son. 
"More  salt!"  he  shouts. 

The  bit  appears 
Again  all  floured, 
And  wet  with  tears 
It  was  devoured. 

The  mother  said 
She'd  saved  her  dear.  .   .  . 
Salt  was  the  bread — 
How  salt  the  tear! 


Alexey  K.  Tolstoy 

(1817-1875) 

Alexey  Tolstoy  was  a  playmate  of  Alexander  II  and  sat  on 
the  knees  of  Goethe.  Like  Ruskin,  he  made  a  cult  of  beauty, 
humanitarianism  and  Italy.  In  this  second  fatherland  of  his, 
he  began  to  travel  early  in  life.  This  courtier-assthete  was  a 
mystic,  with  a  leaning  toward  the  occult.  He  regarded  the 
doctrine  of  equality  as  "  the  foolish  invention  of  1793,"  and  was 
wholly  out  of  sympathy  with  the  materialistic  iconoclasts  of 
his  time.  Yet  he  was  too  much  of  an  aristocrat  not  to  despise 
despotism. 

His  literary  activity  began  in  his  middle  years.  His  romantic 
interest  in  the  Russian  past  produced  a  novel  and  a  dramatic 
trilogy.  The  past  is  also  the  playground  of  Tolstoy's  poetry. 
This  frequently  degenerates  into  pastiche.  Nevertheless  he  was 
a  major  poet  among  the  minor  poets,  at  his  best  achieving  a 
neat  and  graceful  lyricism.  His  technique  is  unusual  in  Rus- 
sian poetry  for  its  prosodic  freedom. 


34 


Alexey  K.  Tolstoy  35 


MY  LITTLE  ALMOND  TREE 

My  little  almond  tree 

Is  gay  with  gleaming  bloom, 

My  heart  unwillingly 

Puts  forth  its  buds  of  gloom. 

The  bloom  will  leave  the  tree, 
The  fruit,  unbidden,  grow. 
And  the  green  boughs  will  be 
By  bitter  loads  brought  low. 


36  Alexey  K.  Tolstoy 

"A  WELL,  AND  THE  CHERRY  TREES 
SWAYING  " 

A  well,  and  the  cheriy  trees  swaying 
Where  bare  girlish  feet  trod  the  fruit; 
Nearby  the  damp  imprint  betraying 
The  stamp  of  a  heavy  nailed  boot. 

Stilled  now  is  the  place  of  their  meeting, 
But  nothing  the  silence  avails: 
In  my  brain  passion's  echo  repeating 
Their  whispers — the  splash  of  the  pails. 


Alexey  K.  Tolstoy  37 

"  OH,  THE  RICKS  " 

Oh,  the  ricks,  the  ricks, 
In  the  meadows  lying, 
The  eye  cannot  count 
You,  for  all  its  trying. 

Oh,  the  ricks,  the  ricks, 
In  the  green  morasses, 
What  do  you  guard: 
You  heaped,  heavy  masses? 

Pray,  behold  us,  good  sir: 
We  were  once  bright  flowers; 
But  the  sharp  scythe  falls 
And  the  whole  field  cowers. 

We  were  littered  here, 

All  mown  down  and  shattered, 

On  the  rneadowland 

From  each  other  scattered. 

We  have  no  defense: 

Evil  guests  come  clawing — 

And  upon  our  crests 

Perch  the  black  crows,  cawing. 

On  our  heads  they  perch, 
The  starred  heavens  dimming. 
Here  the  jackdaws  flock, 
Their  foul  hutches  trimming. 


38  Alexey  K.  Tolstoy 

Oh,  thou  eagle,  hail! 
Our  far  father  flying, 
Oh,  thou  fire-eyed,  come, 
Our  bleak  foes  defying. 

Oh,  thou  eagle,  hail! 

Lo,  our  groans  grow  stronger. 

Let  the  evil  crows 

Blacken  us  no  longer. 

Oh,  avenge  us  swift, 

From  the  heavens  swooping; 

Punish  their  vile  pride 

Till  their  wings  fall  drooping: 

Till  the  feathers  fly; 
Come,  a  bolt  of  thunder, 
That  the  steppe's  wild  wind 
Tear  them  all  asunder. 


Apollon  Maikov 
(1821-1897) 

Born  of  a  mother  with  a  literary  leaning  and  an  aristocratic 
father,  who  gave  up  the  military  career  for  that  of  a  painter, 
Maikov  himself  was  a  sculptor  who  lost  his  way  in  literature. 
He  studied  painting  in  his  youth,  and  indeed  his  poems  show 
a  clear  sense  of  line  and  color,  but  his  best  work  is  marked 
by  a  truly  sculptural  quality.  He  received  a  thorough  classical 
education  and  in  his  early  work  he  imitated  the  Greek  and 
Roman  masters.  Generally  speaking,  he  yields  all  too  easily 
to  the  indirections  of  erudition  and  to  the  Protean  pleasures  of 
promiscuous  translation.  It  is  in  the  classical  genre  that  he 
achieves  a  small  excellence.  His  finest  craftsmanship  is  shown 
in  enamels  and  cameos,  and  in  clay  medallions,  but  he  has 
neither  the  paganism  of  Gautier  nor  the  sensitive  sophistication 
of  Regnier.  Maikov's  is  a  baptized  Pan  and  a  feigning  Bacchus. 

His  later  work  was  dominated  by  a  nationalistic  bias  which 
opposed  the  chosen  Russian  people  to  "  the  rotten  West."  A 
typical  aesthete,  Maikov  found  himself  in  the  conservative  camp. 
For  nearly  half  a  century  he  served  his  monarch  as  a  censor. 
The  antinomy  of  east  and  west,  of  Christianity  and  paganism, 
viewed  with  a  cold  objectivity,  superseded  his  interest  in  the 
antique  world.  This  is  the  pivotal  idea  of  his  greatest  narra- 
tive poem,  the  tragedy  of  "  The  Two  Worlds." 


39 


40  Apollon  Maikov 

ART 

Idly  I  cut  me  a  reed  by  the  shore  where  the  sea  heaves 

and  thunders, — 
Dumb  and  forgotten  it  lay  in  my  simple,  my  wind-beaten 

cabin. 
Once  an  old  traveler  passed  who  remained  for  the  night 

in  our  dwelling, — 
(Foreign  his  dress  and  his  tongue,  an  old  man  who  was 

strange  to  our  region.) 
Seeing  the  reed,  he  retrieved  it,  and  lopping  and  piercing 

the  nodules, 
Sweetly  his  lips  he  applied  to  the  holes  that  he  fashioned : 

responding, 
Swiftly  the  reed-voice  awoke,  till  the  noise  of  the  sea 

breathed  within  it; 
Thus   would   wild    Zephyros   blow,   were   he   suddenly 

ruffling  the  waters, 
Fingering  lightly  the  reed-stems  and  flooding  the  banks 

with  the  sea-sound. 


Apollon  Maikov  41 

"  UPON  THIS  WILD  HEADLAND  " 

Upon  this  wild  headland,  crowned  meanly  with  indigent 
rushes 

And  withering  bush  and  the  pitiful  green  of  the  pine- 
trees, 

The  aged  Meniskos,  a  sorrowful  fisherman  laid 

His  son  who  had  perished.  His  youth  the  sea,  motherwise, 
nurtured, 

That  sea  whose  wide  lap  took  him  back,  who  re.sistlessly 
bore  him 

In  death,  and  who  carefully  carried  the  young  body  shore- 
ward. 

Then  mourning  Meniskos  went  forth,  and  beneath  the 
great  willow 

He  dug  him  a  grave,  a  plain  stone  he  set  for  a  mark  on 
the  cliff-side, 

And  hung  overhead  a  coarse  net  he  had  woven  of 
willow, — 

A  fisherman's  wreath  to  be  poverty's  bitter  memento. 


42'  Apollon  Maikov 

SUMMER  RAIN 

"Golden  rain!  Golden  rain!  out  of  the  sky!" 
Children  sing  out  and  run  after  the  rain. 

"  Quiet,  my  children,  we'll  reap  it  again, 
Only  we'll  gather  the  gold  in  the  grain — 
In  the  full  granaries  fragrant  with  rye." 


Afanasy  Shenshin-Foeth 
(1820-1892) 

It  is  said  that  Foetb,  like  the  nightingale,  sang  only  at  dawn 
and  at  sunset.  Between  1840  and  1856  he  published  three 
volumes  of  poetry.  The  following  two  decades  he  devoted  to 
the  pleasures  and  profits  of  a  gentleman  farmer.  He  waxed 
fat  and  prosperous.  His  famous  apple-cakes  were  sent  to  no 
less  a  friend  than  Alexander  III.  On  the  road  to  the  ripe  old 
age  of  three  score  and  ten,  the  poet  superseded  the  pomeshchik 
and  paid  court  to  the  Muse  with  four  volumes  of  verse. 

Although  an  admirer  and  translator  of  Schopenhauer,  Foeth 
enjoyed  the  distinction  of  being  one  of  the  few  men  who  were 
actually  happy  in  Russia.  He  had  an  Horatian  serenity,  and 
the  aesthete's  indifference  to  society's  ills.  These  elements  in 
his  character  alone  are  reflected  in  his  poetry,  which  is  written 
in  major,  yet  has  withal  the  ethereal,  insubstantial  quality  of 
dream  experience.  His  lyrics  are  invested  with  a  rarefied  sen- 
suousness,  a  keen  feeling  for  life's  cosmic  context,  and  a  domi- 
nating interest  in  melody.  Tchaikovsky,  who  set  many  of  his 
poems  to  music,  likened  Foeth  to  Beethoven. 


43 


44  Afanasy  Shenshin-Foeth 


"WHISPERS.    TIMID  BREATHING" 

Whispers.     Timid  breathing.     Trilling 

Of  a  nightingale. 
Heaving  silver  waters  rilling 

In  the  quiet  vale. 

Night's  dim  light  and  shadows  dreaming 
Through  the  haze  of  space. 

Moods  like  faery  lanterns  gleaming 
On  the  dearest  face. 

Smoky  clouds  show  roses  sleeping, 

Amber  lights  and  fawn. 
Kisses  soft,  and  softer  weeping. 

And  the  dawn,  the  dawn! 


Afanasy  Shenshin-Foedh  45 


THE  AERIAL  CITY 

At  daybreak  there  spread  through  the  heavens 

Pale  clouds  like  a  turreted  town: 

The  cupolas  golden,  fantastic, 

White  roofs  and  white  walls  shining  down. 

This  citadel  is  my  white  city, 
My  city  familiar  and  dear, 
Above  the  dark  earth  as  it  slumbers, 
Upon  the  pink  sky  builded  clear. 

And  all  that  aerial  city 
Sails  northward,  sails  softly,  sails  high; 
And  there  on  the  height,  some  one  beckons, — 
But  proffers  no  pinions  to  fly. 


46  Afanasy  $henshin-Foeth 

SWALLOWS 

Calm  Nature's  idle  spy,  I  follow 

In  joy  her  pathways;  free  and  fond, 

I  watch  the  arrow-winged  swift  swallow 

Who  curves  above  the  dusking  pond. 

It  dashes  forward,  lightly  skimming 
The  glassy  surface,  half  in  fear 
Of  alien  clutching  waters — dimming 
The  lightning  wings  before  they  veer. 

And  once  again  the  same  quick  daring, 
And  once  again  the  same  dark  stream.  .  .  . 
Is  not  this  flight  our  human  faring? 
Is  not  this  urge  our  human  dream? 

Thus  I,  frail  vessel,  am  forbidden 
To  take  the  foreign  road,  and  dip 
To  scoop  a  drop ;  the  ways  are  hidden 
Of  alien  streams  I  may  not  sip. 


Yakov  Polonsky 
(1819-1898) 

The  routine  of  Polonsky's  uneventful  life  was  compounded 
of  teaching,  editorial  work  and  long  years  of  service  in  the 
censorship  department.  It  is  true  that  he  traveled  abroad  and 
spent  some  years  in  the  Caucasus,  but  this  did  not  interrupt  the 
even  tenor  of  his  ways. 

He  was  a  prolific  fiction  writer,  yet  it  is  as  a  poet  that  he 
lives  in  the  memory  of  his  compatriots.  His  poetry  itself  has 
been  charged  with  being  "  lukewarm  and  neither  cold  nor  hot." 
It  lacks,  it  has  been  said,  that  cosmic  nostalgia  and  civic  con- 
sciousness which  belong  to  Russian  poetry.  Indeed  Polonsky's 
poetic  effigy  is  rather  unheroic  and  indistinct  in  outline.  Yet 
he  has  the  virtues  of  his  defects.  His  work  is  distinguished  by 
its  homeliness.  It  keeps  to  the  lighted  circle  of  our  familiar 
and  familial  life,  and  foregoes  power  and  passion  for  intimacy 
and  charm. 


47 


Yakov  Polonsky 


THE  COSMIC  FABRIC l 

This  vast  web,  of  Nature's  weaving, 
Is  God's  garment,  so  'tis  said. 
In  that  fabric  I — a  living, 
I — a  still  unbroken  thread. 
And  the  threads  run  swiftly,  never 
Halting,  yet  if  once  they  sever, 
Seer  or  sage  shall  not  suffice 
Then  uie  parted  strands  to  splice. 
For  the  Weaver  so  will  veil  them 
That  (let  him  who  may  bewail  them) 
None  the  ends  shall  ever  find, 
Nor  one  broken  thread  rebind. 
Ceaselessly  the  threads  are  breaking, — 
Short,  ah  short  will  be  my  span! 
Meanwhile,  at  His  fabric's  making 
Toils  the  cosmic  Artisan, — 
Curious  patterns  still  designing, 
Wave  and  crested  hill  defining, 
Steppe  and  pasture,  cloud  and  sky, 
Wood  and  field  of  golden  rye. 
Though  with  care  the  wise  may  scan  it, 
Flawless  since  that  Hand  began  it, 
Smooth  and  fine  with  fair  accord — 
Shines  the  garment  of  the  Lord! 

1  Tr.  by  Avrahm  Yarmolinsky  and  Cecil  Cowdrey. 


Yakov  Polonsky  49 

SORROW'S  MADNESS 

When,  clinging  to  your  lidded  coffin, 

I  saw  you,  love,  on  your  last  journey  go, 

No  sobs  my  maddened  heart  could  soften, 

And  I  seemed  dead,  like  you,  below. 

Yours  was  the  grave  men  see  so  often: 

Your  small  frame  fitted  snugly,  so ; 

With  leaden  stupor  blinded,  I  beheld  it 

Vanish,  I  heard  the  clods'  soft  blow. 

My  coffin  was  not  thus — but  spacious, 

And  gay  with  leaves  and  a  blue  pall  in  state. 

And  fastened  to  it  glared  the  sun  of  mid-day: 

A  gilded,  gawdy  coffin-plate. 

Your  coffin   disappeared  beneath  wet  earth  and  gravel, 

But  mine — alas! — still  glittered  mockingly.  .  .  . 

An  orphaned  soul  and  widowed,  I  let  my  sad  eyes  travel 

About  me,  my  heart's  heart,  and  I  could  see 

How,  buried  deep  in  my  resplendent  coffin, 

And  bearing  death  within  me,  I  would  sue 

For  happiness  now  lost  forever ; 

I  knew  my  nothingness,  my  thirst  for  you. 

I  longed  to  break  the  spell  of  numbness — 

Lay  waste  my  living  tomb,  wrench  back  its  bars, 

To  tear  aside  the  graveclothes  of  the  heavens, 

To  stamp  upon  the  sun  and  scatter  wide  the  stars, 

And  dash  across  this  endless  graveyard 

Where  dead  worlds  fill  the  graves, 

To  find  your  dwelling  where  no  memories  languish, 

To  Death's  void  galley  chained  like  sullen  slaves. 


Vladimir  Solovyov 
(1853-1900) 

Coming  from  a  family  of  scholars  and  churchmen,  Solovyov 
was  himself  a  mystic  and  visionary:  an  alien  seed  in  an  exor- 
cised age.  He  was  a  cross  between  a  Bohemian  and  a  lay 
monk,  whose  asceticism  only  emphasized  his  powerfully  erotic 
nature.  A  spirit  dedicated  to  the  creation  of  the  greatest  philo- 
sophical system  which  Russia  has  given  to  the  world  was  fain 
to  express  itself  also  in  poetry.  His  one  slender  volume  of 
lyrics  has  the  quality  of  soaring  spirituality,  and  is  generally 
engaged  with  a  supersensuous  reality,  occasionally  broken  by 
irruptions  of  spasmodic  comedy.  It  is  largely  centered  about 
the  concept  of  the  Eternal  Feminine,  which  also  plays  an  im- 
portant part  in  his  grandiose  religious  system.  He  conceives 
it  not  as  Aphrodite,  but  rather  as  Sophia:  Divine  Wisdom. 

This  feminine  principle  materialized  itself  for  the  mystic 
in  a  Dantesque  experience.  In  a  reminiscential  poem  written 
eight  years  before  his  death,  he  relates  how,  as  a  boy  of  nine, 
he  first  glimpsed  his  Eternal  Mate.  This  was  in  Moscow;  he 
next  sees  her  in  the  reading-room  of  the  British  Museum  thir- 
teen years  later,  as  he  bends  over  volumes  of  abstruse  mystical 
literature.  She  bids  him  follow  her  to  Egypt.  It  is  a  bio- 
graphic fact  that  the  young  Dozent  traveled  across  the  con- 
tinent to  Cairo,  and  went  afoot  into  the  desert,  where  he  beheld 
his  beatific  vision  for  the  last  time. 


50 


Vladimir  Solovyov 


"  BELOW  THE  SULTRY  STORM  " 

Below  the  sultry  storm  that  seemed  to  lower, 
An  alien  force,  again  I  heard  the  call 
Of  my  mysterious  mate :  the  prisoned  power 
Of  old  dreams  flared  and  flickered  in  its  fall. 

And  with  a  cry  of  horror  and  of  dolor — 
As  of  an  eagle  in  an  iron  vise — 
My  spirit  shook  its  cage  in  quivering  choler, 
And  tore  the  net,  and  issued  to  the  skies. 

And  up  behind  the  clouds,  unswerving,  bearing,- 
Before  the  miracles — a  flaming  sea — 
Within  the  shining  sanctum  briefly  flaring, 
It  vanished  into  white  infinity. 


£2  Vladimir  Solovyov 

"WITH  WAVERING  FEET" 

With  wavering  feet  I  walked  where  dawn-lit  mists  were 

lying, 

To  find  the  shores  of  wonder  and  of  mystery. 
Dawn  struggled  with  the  final  stars,  frail  dreams  were 

flying, 

While  unto  unknown  gods  my  morning  lips  were  crying 
The  prayers  that  my  dream-imprisoned  soul  had  whispered 

me. 

The  noon  is  cold  and  candid,  the  road  winds  on  severely, 
And  through  an  unknown  land  once  more  my  journey  lies. 
The  mist  has  lifted  now,  and  the  stark  eye  sees  clearly 
How  hard  the  mountain-road  that  rises  upward  sheerly, 
How  distant  looms  the  dream  the  prescient  heart  de- 
scries ! 

Yet  onward  with  unfaltering  feet  I  shall  be  going 
Toward  midnight,  onward  toward  the  shore  of  my  desires, 
Where  on  a  mountain-height,  new  stars  its  glory  showing, 
My  promised  temple  waits,  with  plinth  and  pillar  glow- 
ing, 
Beaten  about  with  flame  of  white,  triumphal  fires. 


N.  Minsky 

(Pseudonym  of  Nikolai  Vilenkin;  born  1855) 

The  son  of  poor  Jewish  villagers,  Minsky  was,  among  other 
things,  tutor,  lawyer,  and  bank  employee,  before  he  emigrated 
to  Paris  in  1905,  at  the  age  of  fifty,  where  he  has  lived  as 
newspaper  correspondent  and  litterateur  ever  since.  He  had 
previously  lived  abroad,  and  was  abreast  of  European  literary 
movements. 

His  ideological  and  poetic  career  has  been  no  less  kaleido- 
scopic. Beginning  as  a  poet  insistent  upon  civic  virtues  and  art 
as  criticism  of  life,  within  some  ten  years  Minsky  became  the 
prophet  of  a-moralism,  decadence,  symbolism,  and  the  champion 
of  Bacchic  beauty.  Early  in  the  twentieth  century  he  joined 
with  sophisticated  Orthodox  priests  and  lay  God-seekers  in 
founding  a  society  for  the  promotion  of  a  new  religious  con- 
sciousness, himself  preaching  a  nebulously  negative,  mystic 
doctrine  of  "  meonism,"  affectionately  envisaging  a  new 
Nirvana. 

The  revolution  of  1905  inspired  his  Muse  briefly  to  Marxian 
hymns,  and  helped  him  to  his  Parisian  exile.  Here,  in  addition 
to  his  other  work,  he  wrote  a  dramatic  trilogy.  Minsky  had  a 
weakness  for  manifestos,  of  which  his  poetry  was  not  always 
a  successful  illustration.  It  is  only  his  later  work,  with  its  in- 
creased technical  skill,  that  achieves  the  bodying  forth  of  his 
curious  intellection. 


53 


54  N.  Minsky 

FORCE 

She  lies,  opening  her  teats,  strong,  swollen,  wide, 
And  at  her  breasts,  their  equal  gift  bestowing, 
Mad  Nero  and  meek  Buddha  clutch,  unknowing, 
As  clinging  twins  who  suckle  side  by  side. 
She  holds  two  vessels,  whence,  forever  flowing, 
The  streams  of  Life  and  Death  serenely  glide. 
She  breathes — and  wreaths  of  stars  are  lit,  and  bide,- 
She  breathes  anew:  they  fly  like  sere  leaves  blowing. 

She  looks  ahead  with  cold  unseeing  eyes; 
She  cares  not  though  she  bear  or  cause  to  perish; 
The  children  whom  she  nurtures  she  will  cherish, 
But  when  she  weans  them,  every  claim  denies. 
Evil  and  Good  gather  them  in  thereafter 
And  play  the  cosmic  game  with  idle  laughter. 


N.  Minsky  55 

MY  TEMPLE 

Who  rears  a  temple,  rears  two  monuments: 
His  own  and  the  destroyer's.    They  who  build 
Accept  Herostratos'  arbitraments: 
And  to  the  torch  the  chisel's  work  is  willed. 
Both  will  stand  firm  before  posterity, 
And  equal  glory  Fame  to  each  will  lend. 
But  thou,  my  air-domed  temple,  shalt  not  be 
Mocked  by  the  vengeance  of  the  general  end. 

On  an  abyss  of  ruin  is  thy  lease, 
Thou'rt  in  the  furnace  of  negation  fired; 
n  thee  the  hymns  of  solace  shall  not  cease: 
With  sorrow  winged,  by  calm  despair  inspired. 
Thee,  ^gioned  sufferings  guard,  in  iron  mail, 
And  in  their  vanguard  Death,  who  shall  prevail. 


Dmitry  Merezhkovsky 

(Born  1865) 

Merezhkovsky  had  every  opportunity  of  study  and  travel 
afforded  the  son  of  a  comfortably  circumstanced,  bureaucratic 
family.  He  made  his  pilgrimage  to  the  seats  of  the  antique 
Mediterranean  culture,  and  the  Parthenon  brought  him,  like 
Renan,  to  his  knees.  Yet  this  devout  and  learned  Hellenist  is 
much  of  a  lay  theologian.  He  has  constructed  a  professedly 
mystical,  but  actually  rationalistic  religion,  which  dominates  all 
his  work.  The  synthesis  of  paganism  and  Christianity,  of  flesh 
and  spirit,  which  is  his  religion  of  "  the  Third  Testament,"  is 
the  Procrustean  bed  of  both  his  brilliant  criticism  and  his  vast 
historical  novels.  In  the  latter  his  method  is  chiefly  that  of  an 
historical  mosaicist.  His  trilogy  is  accessible  to  the  English 
reader,  as  well  as  some  of  his  critical  work,  notably  a  part  of 
his  remarkable  study  on  Tolstoy  and  Dostoyevsky. 

His  prose  forms  the  bulk  of  his  writings.  As  a  poet,  Merezh- 
kovsky was  one  of  the  initiators  of  the  modernist  movement, 
but  he  counts  mainly  as  the  champion  of  their  poetics.  His  own 
lyrical  work  is  largely  ineffectual  and  imitative  of  men  as  curi- 
ously alien  to  him  as  Baudelaire,  Poe,  and  Nietzsche.  Against 
a  background  of  melancholy  pieces,  expressing  metaphysical 
ennui  and  cold  intellection,  one  finds  some  poems  informed  with 
spiritual  beauty  and  religious  intensity. 


\Dmitry  Merezhkovsky  57 

A  PRAYER 

Cast  prostrate,  in  mourning, 
Wingless,  self-scorning, 
Grief  in  a  gust 
Flings  us,  dust  upon  dust. 
We  desire  not,  we  dare  not, 
We  believe  not,  we  care  not, 
No  wisdom  has  worth. 
God,  do  thou  dower  us, 
Kindle,  empower  us, 
Give  of  thy  mirth. 
From  the  languor  that  clings 
Give  us  wings !    Give  us  wings ! 
Wings  of  thy  Spirit. 


58  Dmitry  Merezhkovsky 

THE  TRUMPET  CALL 

Over  earth  awakes  a  whirring, 

And  a  rustling,  and  a  stirring, 

Trumpet-voices  fill  the  skies: 
"  Lo,  they  call  us.    Brothers,  rise!" 
"  No.    The  darkness  holds  unshaken. 

I  will  sleep,  and  not  awaken. 
.  Do  not  rouse  me.    Do  not  call. 

Do  not  strike  the  coffin-wall." 

"  Now  you  dare  not  sleep.    Resounding 
Sternly,  the  last  trump  is  sounding. 
They  are  rising  from  the  tomb. 
As  from  the  maternal  womb 
Of  the  opened  earth  forth-flinging, 
From  their  graves  the  dead  are  springing." 

"  No,  I  cannot.    All  unuttered 
My  words  died.    My  eyes  are  shuttered. 
I  shall  not  believe  their  lies. 
I  shall  not,  I  cannot  rise! 
Brother, — I  am  ashamed  and  shrinking, — 
Dust,   corruption, — rotting,   stinking!" 

"  Brother,  God  has  seen  our  prison. 
All  shall  wake,  and  all  be  risen. 
All  shall  yet  be  judged  by  Him. 
Cherubim  and  seraphim 


Dmitry  Merezhkovsky  59 

High  the  holy  Throne  are  bearing! 
Here  our  heavenly  King  is  faring. 
Brother,  he  must  live  who  dies. 
Glad  or  grieving,  thou  shalt  rise." 


60  Dmitry  Merezhkovsky 


THE  CURSE  OF  LOVE 

With  heavy  anguish,  hopeless  straining, 
The  bonds  of  love  I  would  remove. 
Oh,  to  be  loosed  from  their  enchaining! 
Oh,  freedom,  only  not  to  love! 

The  soul  that  shame  and  fear  are  scourging 
Crawls  through  a  mist  of  dust  and  blood. 
From  dust,  great  God,  my  spirit  purging, 
Oh,  spare  me  from  love's  bitter  flood ! 

Is  pity's  wall  alone  unshaken? 
I  pray  to  God,  I  cry  in  vain, 
More  weary,  by  all  hope  forsaken; 
Resistless  love  grows  great  again. 

There  is  no  freedom,  unforgiven, 
We  live  as  slaves,  by  life  consumed ; 
We  perish,  tortured,  bound  and  driven, 
Promised  to  death,  and  to  love — doomed. 


Fyodor  Sologub 

(Pseudonym  of  Fyodor  Teternikov;  born  1863) 

In  Sologub  the  sick  fantast  thumbed  his  nose  at  the  respectable 
schoolmaster.  One  would  expect  neither  in  the  son  of  a  tailor 
and  a  peasant  woman,  who  had  grown  up  in  the  house  where 
his  widowed  mother  was  a  servant.  For  ten  years  after  his 
graduation  from  Normal  School  the  young  man  taught  in  the 
provinces,  learning  to  know  the  Main  Streets  of  Russia,  which 
were  to  furnish  the  stuff  of  his  prose.  At  the  age  of  twenty- 
nine  he  transplanted  himself  to  St.  Petersburg,  where  his  un- 
canny verse  and  short  stories  gave  him  the  entree  to  the  mod- 
ernists' circle.  In  1907  he  retired  from  pedagogy,  and  devoted 
himself  entirely  to  literature.  A  few  years  later  his  com- 
plete works  were  published  in  twenty  volumes,  five  of  which 
were  poetry,  the  remainder  fiction  and  drama.  He  is  a  stay- 
at-home,  and  has  remained  one,  the  revolution  notwithstanding. 

If  Sologub  did  not  exist,  it  would  be  necessary  to  invent 
him.  The  decadent  gesture,  which  was  a  pose  or  a  purpose  in 
others,  is  bis  natural  attitude.  He  sees  the  universe  as  a 
ghastly  menagerie  in  which  the  beasts  have  become  wonted  to 
their  own  stench.  From  this  he  escapes  to  a  world  of  impos- 
sible imaginings,  and  fills  his  isolation  with  liturgies  to  his  own 
ego,  hymns  to  the  devil,  hosannahs  to  death.  His  unearthly 
world  is  fevered  with  fleshly  lusts.  In  his  lucid  moments,  how- 
ever, he  achieves  the  charm  of  a  Blake-like  innocence,  and  his 
hemlock  is  mixed  with  the  honey  of  an  enchanting  music.  His 
poetry  is  the  core  of  his  work.  His  prose  is  fantastic  and  Poe- 
esque,  yet  in  one  work  at  least,  notably  "  The  Little  Demon," 
he  follows  the  Russian  realistic  tradition  of  revealing  human 
nature's  repugnant  depths. 


61 


62  Fyodor  Sologub 


THE  AMPHORA 

In  a  gay  jar  upon  his  shoulder 
The  slave  morosely  carries  wine. 
His  road  is  rough  with  bog  and  boulder, 
And  in  the  sky  no  starlights  shine. 
Into  the  dark  with  stabbing  glances 
He  peers,  his  careful  steps  are  slow, 
Lest  on  his  breast  as  he  advances 
The  staining  wine  should  overflow. 

I  bear  my  amphora  of  sorrow, 

Long  brimming  with  the  wine  it  hides; 

There  poison  for  each  waiting  morrow 

Ferments  within  the  painted  sides. 

I  follow  secret  ways  and  hidden 

To  guard  the  evil  vessel,  lest 

A  careless  hand  should  pour  unbidden 

Its  bitterness  upon  my  breast. 


Fyodor  Sologub  63 

THE  DRAGON 

Evil  dragon  in  the  zenith  fiercely  glowing, 
Filaments  of  flame  across  the  heavens  throwing, 
Singeing  all  the  valley  with  a  heat  that  scorches, — 
From  the  deep,  dark  quiver  I  will  pluck  an  arrow 
Tipped  with  subtle  poison  that  shall  find  thy  marrow: 
All  too  early  flourish  thy  triumphal  torches. 
I  shall  draw  my  bow  in  valiant  retribution, 
I,  executor  of  ruthless  execution, 
And  thy  groaning  answer  my  glad  ears  shall  cherish 
As  I  speed  the  sudden  doom  long  overhanging, 
And  the  arrow  whizzes  with  a  brazen  twanging. 
Thou  shall  fade,  thou  evil  dragon,  thou  shalt  perish. 


64  Fyodor  Sologub 

"WHEN,  HEAVING  ON  THE  STORMY 
WATERS  " 

When,  heaving  on  the  stormy  waters, 
I  felt  my  ship  begin  to  sink, 
I  prayed,  "  Oh,  Father  Satan,  save  me, 
Forgive  me  at  death's  utter  brink! 

"  If  you  will  save  my  soul  embittered 
From  perishing  before  its  hour, 
The  days  to  come,  the  nights  that  follow 
I  vow  to  vice,  I  pledge  to  power." 

The  Devil  forthwith  snatched  and  flung  me 
Into  a  boat ;  the  sides  were  frail, 
But  on  the  bench  the  oars  were  lying 
And  in  the  bow  an  old  gray  sail. 

And  landward  once  again  I  carried 
My  outcast  soul,  bereft  of  kin, 
Upon  its  sickly  vicious  sojourn 
My  body  and  its  gift  of  sin. 

And  I  am  faithful,  Father  Satan, 

Unto  my  evil  hour's  vow, 

When  from  my  drowning  ship  you  saved  me 

And  when  I  prayed  you  guide  the  prow. 

To  you  descend  my  praises,  Father, 
No  day  from  bitter  blame  exempt. 
O'er  worlds  my  blasphemy  shall  tower; 
And  I  shall  tempt — and  I  shall  tempt. 


Fyodor  Sologub  65 


"AUSTERE  THE  MUSIC  OF  MY  SONGS" 

Austere  the  music  of  my  songs: 
The  echo  of  sad  utterance  fills  them, 
A  bitter  breath,  far-wafted,  chills  them; 
And  is  my  back  not  bent  to  thongs? 

The  mists  of  day  on  darkness  fall; 
The  vainly  promised  land  I  follow 
Upon  a  road  the  shadows  swallow ; 
The  world  rears  round  me  like  a  wall. 

At  times  from  that  far  land  the  vain 
Faint  voice  will  sound  like  distant  thunder. 
Can  long  abeyance  of  a  wonder 
Obliterate  the  long  bleak  pain  ? 


66  Fyodor  Sologub 


THE  DEVIL'S  SWINGS 

Below  a  pine's  rough  shadow, 
Where  loud  the  river  sings, 
The  hairy-handed  devil 
Pushes  his  devilish  swings. 

He  swings,  and  gives  a  crow, 
To  and  fro 
To  and  fro 

The  boards  creak,  bending  low, 
The  taut  rope  rubbing  slow 
Against  the  heavy  boughs. 

The  board  sways  back,  and  bracing, 
With  a  long  creak  swings  wide, 
The  devil,  still  grimacing, 
Guffaws  and  holds  his  side. 

I  tremble  to  let  go; 

To  and  fro 
To  and  fro 

I  sway  and  cling,  but  no, 

My  languid  glances  grow 

Fast  where  the  devil  tows. 

Above  the  looming  pine 
The  blue  fiend's  sniggers  sting: 
"  You  found  the  swings  so  fine, 
Well,  devil  take  you,  swing!  " 


Fyodor  Sologub  67 

Below  the  shaggy  pine 
They  squeak  and  whirl  and  sling: 
"  You  found  the  swings  so  fine  ? 
Well,  devil  take  you,  swing !  " 

The  fiend  will  not  release 
The  board  that  hangs  too  steep 
Till  I  am  thrust  toward  peace 
By  the  dark  hand's  dread  sweep. 

Until  the  hemp  turns  round 
Too  long,  and  is  worn  free, 
Until  the  broad  black  ground 
Comes  flying  up  to  me. 


Above  the  pine  I'll  fling 
And  bore  into  the  mire. 
Then  swing,  devil,  swing — 
Higher,  higher,  higher! 


Zinaida  Hippius 

(Mme.  Dmitry  Merezhkovsky ;  born  1869) 

Poetry  is  not  woman's  work  in  Russia.  Zinaida  Hippius,  the 
wife  of  Dmitry  Merezhkovsky,  is  one  of  the  few  who  carry  it 
on.  She  has  written  a  great  deal  of  bad  fiction,  some  partisan 
criticism,  rather  indifferent  dramas,  and  her  poetry  is  not  un- 
exceptionable. Soon  after  her  literary  marriage  she  joined  the 
Petersburg  symbolists,  and  with  her  husband  was  one  of  the 
founders  of  the  Religious  Philosophical  Society.  A  weakness 
for  religious  discussion  and  a  theosophic  bias  have  done  much 
damage  to  both  her  prose  and  her  verse.  Her  later  poetry, 
however,  is  interesting  as  the  expression  of  her  difficult  and 
distinctive  personality.  She  has  the  quality  of  burning  ice, 
hiding  under  contemptuous  ennui  her  passion  for  the  impos- 
sible. In  any  event,  she  is  a  virtuoso  of  verse,  whose  mastery 
of  tone-color  and  metric  pattern  is  wholly  admirable. 

She  is  at  present  engaged,  together  with  her  husband,  in  writ- 
ing hymns  of  hate  against  the  Bolsheviki,  from  the  bitter  secu- 
rity of  the  Diaspora. 


68 


Zinaida  Hip  plus  69 


I  SEEK  FOR  RHYTHMIC  WHISPERINGS  " 

I  seek  for  rhythmic  whisperings 
Where  noises  bandy — 
For  life  I  listen  wistfully 
In  footless  banter. 

I  cast  wide  nets  and  tentative 
In  lakes  of  sorrow. 
I  go  toward  final  tenderness 
By  pathways  sordid. 

I  look  for  dewdrops  glistering 
In  falsehood's  gardens. 
I  save  truth's  globules  glistening, 
From  dust-heaps  garnered. 

I  fain  would  fathom  fortitude 
Through  years  of  wormwood — 
And  pierce  the  mortal  fortalice, 
Yet  live,  a  worldling. 

My  cup,  through  ways  impassable, 

To  bear,  untainted; 

By  tenebrous  bleak  passages 

To  joy  attaining. 


70  Zinaida  Hip  plus 

PSYCHE 

A  shameless  thing,  of  every  vileness  capable, 

It  is  as  drab  as  dust,  as  earthly  dust. 

I  perish  of  a  nearness  inescapable; 

Its  fatal  coils  about  my  limbs  are  thrust. 

A  shaggy  poulp,  embracing  me,  and  pricking  me, 
And  as  a  serpent  cold  against  my  heart, 
Its  branching  scales  are  poisoned  arrows  sticking  me ; 
Worse  than  their  bite :  repulsion's  horrid  smart. 

Oh,  were  its  sting  a  veritable  knife  in  me! 
But  it  is  flaccid,  clumsy,  still  and  numb. 
Thus  sluggishly  sucking  the  very  life  in  me, 
A  torpid  dragon,  dreadful,  deaf,  and  dumb. 

With  stubborn  rings  it  winds  in  mute  obscurity 
And  clings  caressingly,  its  purpose  whole. 
And  this  dead  thing,  this  loathsome  black  impurity, 
This  horror  that  I  shrink  from — is  my  soul. 


Zinaida  Hippius  71 

CREATION 

Thou  queen  of  all  serenity, 
Soul  of  my  soul,  most  chaste, 
I  summon  thee,  divinity, 
I  summon  thee,  make  haste ! 

But  to  the  tryst  thy  offering 
Shall  not  be  brought  alone. 
My  guilt  will  come,  my  suffering, 
My  sin  will  lift  its  moan. 

Before  thy  heart  insulted  so, 
In  shame  my  head  will  sink; 
And  I,  who  once  exulted  so, 
My  humble  tears  shall  drink. 

Forgive  me  that  diurnity 
Is  all  my  love  could  dower  ; 
That  not  for  all  eternity, — 
I  made  thee  for  an  hour. 

Alone  my  will  hath  kindled  here 

Thy  being  from  the  void. 

And  thou  shalt  soon  have  dwindled  here, 

By  my  sole  will  destroyed. 

As  I,  thou  shalt  grow  tremulous, 
Till  all  my  strength  is  gone, 
To  fall,  of  silence  emulous, 
Into  oblivion. 


Konstantin  Balmont 

(Born  1867) 

Balmont  revived  the  tradition  of  the  wandering  minstrel.  He 
traveled  more  widely  than  the  old-fashioned  troubadour  and 
also  more  comfortably.  His  journeys  carried  him  to  Mexico 
and  Egypt,  to  India  and  the  South  Seas,  and  winds  from  these 
exotic  lands  blow  through  his  songs.  His  stay  abroad  was 
somewhat  of  an  exile,  as  certain  political  poems  written  in  1906 
barred 'him  from  Russia.  This  was  a  recrudescence  of  youth- 
ful political  ardor,  which,  in  his  student  years,  sent  him  to 
prison  for  a  short  time,  but  which  burned  itself  out  early.  He 
returned  home  in  1913,  where  he  remained  through  the  war  and 
the  revolution,  till  in  1920  he  shook  the  dust  of  communism  from 
his  feet. 

Of  late  years,  his  reputation,  which  was  enormous  about  a 
decade  ago,  has  been  on  the  wane.  Yet  his  place  as  a  great 
poet  and  as  the  leader  of  Russian  modernism  is  assured  to  him 
in  the  opinion  of  his  compatriots.  He  brought  to  Russian  liter- 
ature a  spontaneous  lyricism  and  a  didacticism  of  joy  which, 
while  emancipating  poetry  from  its  gloom  and  social  bias,  failed 
of  intensity,  imagery,  and  intellection.  What  impressed  his 
public  was  his  vociferous  asstheticism  and  a  prolific  versatility 
in  subject-matter.  He  has  certainly  contributed  to  the  language 
by  his  rhythmic  inventions.  His  range  includes  poems  about 
the  colors,  children's  verse,  abstruse  mythology,  adaptations  of 
Russian  folk-songs  and  spells,  hymns  to  the  elements,  and,  above 
all,  pure  lyrics.  He  is  a  veritable  Narcissus  of  the  ink-pot,  to 
use  a  bon-mot  of  Tyutchev's.  The  "  Hymn  to  Fire  "  is  given 
here,  not  for  its  quality,  but  solely  as  a  typical  example  of  Bal- 
mont's  manner.  He  has  done  a  rare  service  to  Russian  letters 
by  translating  the  poetry  of  many  languages,  including  the 
Scandinavian.  He  has  practically  made  an  anthology  of  Eng- 
lish verse,  and  also  gave  to  Russia  a  partial  Whitman  and  a 
complete  Shelley.  Like  Ezra  Pound,  he  takes  pleasure  in 
flaunting  an  obscure  linguistic  erudition.  His  fecundity,  one 
fears,  has  survived  most  of  his  other  faculties. 


72 


Konstantin  Balmont  73 


"WITH  MY  FANCY  I  GRASPED"1 

With  my  fancy  I  grasped  at  the  vague  shadows  straying, 
At  the  vague  shadows  straying  where  the  daylight  had 

fled; 

I  ascended  a  tower,  and  the  stairway  was  swaying, 
And  the  stairway  was  swaying  underneath  my  light  tread. 

And  the  higher  I  climbed,  ever  clearer  were  rounded, 
Ever  clearer  were  rounded  dreaming  hilltops  aglow ; 
And  from  Heaven  to  Earth  twilight  voices  resounded, 
Twilight  voices  resounded  from  above  and  below. 

And  the  higher  I  rose,  strange  horizons  defining, 
Strange  horizons  defining,  did  the  summits  appear; 
And  my  eyes  as  I  looked  were  caressed  by  their  shining, 
Were  caressed  by  their  shining,  their  farewell,  sad  and 
clear. 

Now  the  night  had   appeared;   Earth  in   darkness  lay 

dreaming, 

Earth  in  darkness  lay  dreaming,  like  a  slumbering  star, 
While  the  smoldering  sun,  his  dim  embers  still  gleaming, 
His  dim  embers  still  gleaming,  shone  for  me  from  afar. 

I  had  learned  to  ensnare  the  vague  shadows  far  straying, 
The  vague  shadows  far  straying,  where  the  daylight  had 

fled; 

Ever  higher  I  rose,  and  the  stairway  was  swaying, 
And  the  stairway  was  swaying  underneath  my  light  tread. 

1Tr.  by  Avrahra  Yarmolinsky  and  Cecil  Cowdrey. 


74  Konstantin  Balmont 

CENTURIES  OF  CENTURIES  WILL  PASS 

Long  centuries  of  centuries  will  pass,  unsighted 

Millenniums  as  locusts  in  deathy  clouds  descend, 

And  in  the  muttering  of  centuries  affrighted 

The  same  enduring  firmament  will  watch  the  end. 

The     dumb,     dead     firmament — that    God     will     not 

remember, 

Who  breathes  Eternity  behind  the  farther  skies, 
Beyond  the  fading  of  the  last  star's  last  slow  ember, 
Beyond  the  utter  threshold  words  may  scrutinize. 
Forever  cold,  that  starry  desert,  clouds  out-topping, 
Is  flung  forth,  alien  to  the  end,  on  space, 
When  tearing  comet-fires  will  crumble  with  it,  dropping 
As  dumbly  burning  tears  from  a  despairing  face. 


Konstantin  Balmont 


IN  THE  WHITE  LAND 

The  candid  psalm  of  Silence  rises  whitely  burning, 
The  icy  wastes  are  lit  with  sunset's  radiant  yearning. 
The  drowsy  elements  in  yawning  vistas  freeze, 
And  voiceless  are  the  argent  Polar  liturgies. 

Above  the  sea  of  whiteness,  crimson  curtains  falling; 
No  fields  or  forests  here,  clear  crystal  shines  appalling. 
White  altars  stretch  beneath  the  changeless  icy  skies, 
A  prayer,  not  suppliant,  a  psalm,  not  voiced, — arise. 


76  Konstantin  Balmont 

HYMN  TO  FIRE 

i 

Oh,  fire  who  purgeth  us 
In  fate-kindled  strife, 
Thy  beauty  ruleth  us, 
Shining  with  life ! 

2 

Still  and  meek  in  the  glow  of  a  taper  in  church, 

But  in  riot — tumultuous-tongued, 

Unmoved  by  wild  prayers,  multi-faced, 

Shot  with  color  in  walls  overthrown, 

Mad  with  passion,  and  nimble  and  gay, — 

So  triumphantly  beautiful 

That  my  eyes  are  alight  with  thy  joy 

Though  thou  feed  on  my  own, — 

O  fair  Fire,  all  my  dreams  are  devoted  to  thee! 

3 

Eternally  changeful, 

Thou  art  Protean-faced. 

Thou  art  smokily  crimson 

In  the  bonfires'  roar. 

Thou  art  as  a  flower  of  terror  with  petals  of  flame, 

A  bright  mane  of  radiant  hair. 

In  the  tremulous  flame  of  a  taper  thou  burn'st 

First  in  blue,  then  in  shuddering  gold. 

In  the  silence  of  midsummer  lightnings  thou  wak'st, 

Burning  coldly  in  storm-burdened  clouds, 

Eerily  livid  and  dark. 


Konstantin  Balmont  77 

In  the  thunder  that  crashes,  the  chanting  of  rain, 

Thou  art  writ  in  the  lightning's  brief  hieroglyphs, 

In  a  quick  broken  flash 

Or  a  long  mighty  shaft, 

Now  a  ball  with  a  nimbus  of  air  all  aglow 

Where  the  swift-running  gold 

Is  with  scarlet  besprent. 

Thou  art  in  the  crystal  of  stars,  in  the  comets'  strong  urge. 

Sun-sent,  thou  dost  enter  the  chambers  of  plants 

With  the  gift  of  a  quickening  warmth. 

Thou  workest,  thou  wakest  the  secret  of  sap : 

Flaming  up  in  a  scarlet  carnation, 

Pale  gold  in  the  whispering  corn, 

Or  carelessly  flung  in  a  lithe  drunken  vine. 

Thou  art  lying  in  wait : 

As  a  spark  in  the  night 

So  thou  leapest  elate. 

Thou  art  still  in  thy  flight. 

Soon  thy  glow  shall  abate, 

But  alive  thou  art  great, 
Than  thy  beauty  is  nothing  more  strange  or  more  bright. 

4 

I  shall  chant  thy  high  praises  forever! 
O  sudden,  O  subtle,  O  terrible  Fire! 
Thy  work  is  the  melting  of  metals; 
By  thy  aid  are  they  fashioned  and  forged: 
The  ponderous  horse-shoes; 
The  resounding  and  bright-bladed  scythes: 
That  mow  and  that  reap, 
That  mow  and  that  reap; 


78  Konstantin  Balmont 

Many  circlets  for  lily-white  fingers, 
For  ring-bounded  lives, 
For  ring-fettered  years, 
As  with  lips  growing  cold  the  word  '  love ' 
We  repeat. 

Thou  Greatest  the  tools  and  machines 
That  shake  mountains  and  shatter  and  smite, 
The  tools  that  find  deep-buried  gold,  the  keenness  of 
weapons  that  kill. 

5 
Unto  thee,  omnipresent  and  sovereign,  my  dreaming  I 

vow. 

I  am  even  as  thou. 

Thou  dost  light,  thou  dost  burn,  thou  dost  strive, 
Thou  art  'live,  thou  art  'live ! 
Of  old  a  winged  dragon  thou  wert,  to  the  altar  didst 

glide 

Thence  to  ravish  the  bride. 

And  a  fiery  guest,  a  consoler  who  warmed  to  the  bone 
The  young  wife  left  alone. 
O  brilliant,  O  burning,  O  biting,  O  fierce, 
In  thy  flame  all  the  colors  arise. 

Thou  art  crimson  and  yellow,  thy  gleaming  doth  pierce 
With  the  glow  of  chameleon  gold  and  the  scarlet  that 

lights  autumn  skies. 

Thou  art  as  a  diamond  with  facets  that  shine, 
As  the  feline  caress  of  soft  eyes  that  are  heady  as  wine, 
As  the  wave  in  its  ecstasy  breaking,  an  emerald  line. 
Like  the  leaf's  iridescence  agleam  with  reiterant  Springs 
In  the  dewdrop  that  trembles  and  swings. 


Konstantin  Balmont  79 

Like  the  green  dream  of  fireflies  kindled  at  night, 

Like  the  will-o'-the-wisp  in  the  haze, 

Like  the  dark,  scalloped  clouds  the  grave  evening  has 

gilded  with  light, 
That  have  spread  forth  their  mourning  upon  the  dim  face 

of  the  smoldering  days. 

6 

I  remember,  O  Fire, 

How  thy  flames  once  enkindled  my  flesh, 

Among  writhing  witches  caught  close  in  thy  flame-woven 

mesh. 

How,  tortured  for  having  beheld  what  is  secret, 
We  were  flung  to  the  fire  for  the  joy  of  our  sabbath. 
But  to  those  who  had  seen  what  we  saw 
Yea,  Fire  was  naught. 
Ah,  well  I  remember 
The  buildings  ablaze  where  we  burned 
In  the  fires  we  lit,  and  smiled  to  behold  the  flames  wind 
About  us,  the  faithful,  among  all  the  faithless  and  blind. 
To  the  chanting  of  prayers,  the  frenzy  of  flame, 
We  sang  thy  hosannahs,  oh  strength-giving  Fire: 
I  pledged  love  to  thee  from  the  pyre ! 

7 

Oh,  Fire,  I  know 
That  thy  light  with  an  ultimate  splendor  our  being  shall 

drench ; 
It  shall  flare  up  before  eyes  that  Death  fain  would  finally 

quench. 

With  swift  knowledge  it  burns,  and  with  joy  heaven-high 
At  the  vastness  of  vistas  unfolding  afar. 


80  Konstantin  Balmont 

Who  has  summoned  those  visions  to  being?    And  why? 
Who  has  rayed  them  in  colors  befitting  a  star? 
Beyond  life  is  the  answer. 

Oh  thou  heavenward  heart  of  the  element  ever  in  flight, 
On  my  twilight  horizon,  let  Death,  necromancer, 
Shed  perpetu0!  light! 


Valery  Brusov 

(Born  1873) 

Brusov's  biography  coincides  with  his  bibliography.  He  has 
filled  his  life  with  the  labors  of  a  curious-minded  poet  and 
a  sensitive  erudite.  In  1913,  at  the  age  of  forty,  he  began 
publishing  the  complete  edition  of  his  works  in  twenty-five 
volumes.  In  addition  to  poetry,  original  and  translated,  it  in- 
cludes two  novels,  tales,  dramas,  and  critical  work.  His  tales 
and  dramas  have  a  timeless,  abstract  quality,  a  curious  com- 
bination of  the  Wellsian  and  the  Poe-esque.  His  two  large 
novels  are  marvelous  studies  in  the  archaeology  of  the  soul, 
restoring  as  they  do  the  psyche  of  the  Roman  decadence  and 
of  Germany's  dying  Middle  Ages. 

Before  he  came  of  age  he  fell  under  the  spell  of  the  French 
symbolists  and  his  argosy  began  by  sailing  under  their  colors. 
His  European  years  sharpened  these  sympathies.  He  tried  to 
transplant  the  French  vers  librf  into  Russian  soil,  and  among 
other  things,  an  anthology  of  French  lyrics  of  the  nineteenth 
century  bears  witness  to  his  Gallic  apprenticeship.  Indeed,  he 
achieved  a  leading  place  among  the  Russian  symbolists,  becom- 
ing an  editor  of  their  Moscow  organ  (Vesy:  The  Balance). 
Yet  although  he  adopted  all  the  manners  and  mannerisms  of 
the  neo-romantic  reaction,  such  as  aversion  to  reality,  violent 
eroticism  and  extreme  individualism,  by  temperament  Brusov  is 
more  of  a  Parnassian.  His  later  work  shows  a  gravitation  to- 
ward a  soberer  and  more  objective  conception  of  art.  His 
craftsmanship  is  careful  and  conscious,  whether  he  wanders 
down  the  ages,  dedicating  a  line  to  every  god.  or  traces  the 
pattern  of  his  own  moods,  or,  like  his  master  Verhaeren,  finds 
a  rhythm  for  the  voices  of  the  city.  According  to  Gautier's 
precept,  he  works  "dans  le  bloc  resistant.''  He  has  an  eye  for 
imagery  and  an  ear  trained  to  complex  orchestration. 

The  revolution  has  not  exiled  Brusov,  and  he  is  laboring  to 
preserve  the  continuity  of  Russia's  culture.  In  a  literary  capac- 
ity he  holds  an  important  Government  post 


8l 


82  Valery  Brusov 


THE  TRYST1 

In  the  land  of  Ra  the  flaming,  by  the  shores  of  Nile's  slow 
waters,  where  the  roofs  of  Thebes  were  seen, 

In  the  days  of  yore  you  loved  me,  as  dark  Isis  loved 
Osiris,  sister,  friend  and  worshiped  queen! 

And  the  pyramid  its  shadow  on  our  evening  trysts  would 
lean. 

Oh,  the  mystery  remember  of  our  meeting  in  the  temple, 
in  the  aisle  of  granite,  dim  and  straight, 

And  the  hour  when,  lights  extinguished,  and  the  sacred 
dances  broken, — each  to  each  was  sudden  mate ; 

Our  caresses,  burning  whispers,  ardors  that  we  could  not 
sate. 

In  the  splendor  of  the  ball-room,  clinging  to  me,  white 
and  tender, — through  Time's  curtain  rift  in  twain, 

Did  your  ear  not  catch  the  anthems,  mingling  with  the 
crash  of  cymbals,  and  the  people's  answering  refrain  ? 

Did  you  not  repeat  in  rapture  that  our  love  awoke  again  ? 

Once  before,  we  knew  existence,  this  our  bliss  is  a  remem- 
brance, and  our  love — a  memory; 

Casting  off  its  ancient  ashes,  flames  again  our  hungry 
passion,  flames  and  kindles  you  and  me, — 

As  of  old,  by  Nile's  slow  waters,  in  the  land  beyond  the 
sea. 

1  Tr.  by  Avrahm  Yarmolinsky. 


Valery  Brusov  83 


"  RADIANT  RANKS  OF  SERAPHIM  " 

Radiant  ranks  of  seraphim 
Stir  the  air  about  our  bed. 
With  their  windy  wings  and  dim 
Our  hot  cheeks  are  comforted. 

Low  the  circling  seraphs  bend, 
And  we  tremble  and  rejoice 
At  hosannas  that  ascend, 
Winged  with  their  unearthly  voice. 

Cloudy  luminous  faces  hover, 
And  the  wing-swept  candles  wane. 
And  our  fiery  breasts  they  cover 
As  with  hidden  holy  rain. 


Valery  Brusov 


BENEDICTION 

Que  tes  mains  soient  benies,  car  elles  sont  impures. 

CHARLES  BAUDELAIRE. 

The  shining  of  your  golden  eyes  I  bless ! 
That  broke  my  dark  delirium  with  light. 

The  smile  that  wavers  on  your  lips  I  bless! 
It  kindled  me  like  wine,  it  rent  my  night. 

The  poison  in  your  kisses  hid,  I  bless ! 

All  thoughts,  all  dreams  are  poisoned  by  your  kiss. 

The  scythe  that  sings  in  your  embrace  I  bless! 
All  my  past  years  you  have  mown  down  with  this. 

The  fire  of  your  awful  love  I  bless! 
I  wrapped  its  flame  about  me  joyfully. 

The  darkness  of  your  spirit,  lo,  I  bless ! 

For  that  its  wings  were  outstretched  over  me. 

Blessed  all  you  gave,  blessed  what  your  soul  denies : 
I  bless  you  for  the  grief,  the  dread,  the  pain  ; 

That  after  you  I  strove  toward  Paradise; 
That  here  without  its  gates,  I  stand  in  vain. 


Valery  Brusov 

INEVITABILITY 

If  you  kept  faith,  or  not,  does  it  avail? 
If  I  was  faithful  or  unfaithful  to  you? 
Our  eyes  that  would  look  elsewhere  flinch  and  fail, 
Yet  not  my  will  has  power  to  undo  you. 
Once  more  I  tremble,  so  once  more  you  pale, 
As  the  forebodings  of  old  pain  break  through  you. 
The  moments  pour  with  noise  of  torrents  streaming : 
Above  us  passion's  lifted  blade  is  gleaming. 

Whoever  made  us,  lips  and  lit  eyes  drinking 
Of  lips  and  eyes,  be  it  or  God  or  Fate, 
Is  it  not  one  ?    Within  the  circle  shrinking 
We  stand  to  hear  the  spell  reverberate! 
We  bend  with  happiness  and  fear, — and  sinking, 
We  fall :  two  anchors  on  the  sea-floor  grate. 
Fancy,  nor  chance,  nor  passion  overpowers 
Us,  whom  the  ineluctable  devours. 


86  Valery  Brusov 

THE  FIERCE  BIRDS 

Kindling  the  air,  fierce  birds  with  feathers  of  fire, 
Through  the  white  portals  of  Paradise  flamed  like  desire. 
Virgin  vistas  reared,  lit  with  quivering  red, 
And  beyond  seas  were  the  trackless  wanderers  fled. 

But  on  the  pillars  of  marble,  on  the  threshold  were  thrown 
Crimson  shadows  incredible,  sunk  in  the  stone. 
And,  under  the  arch,  in  eternity's  radiance  hidden, 
Angels  exulted  in  fruits  that  are  secret  and  sweet  and 
forbidden. 


Valery  Brusov  87 

EVENTIDE 

The  posters  shout,  their  gorgeous  motley  blares, 

The  signboards'  groaning  fills  the  street, 

And  from  the  shops  a  shrill  light  sharply  flares, 

As  cries  of  triumph  mock  defeat. 

Behind  the  glimmering  panes  soft  fabrics  sleep, 

And  diamonds  pour  their  poison  daze, 

Above  massed  coins  the  lottery  numbers  leap 

Like  northern  lights  ablaze. 

The  burning  streets  like  long  canals  of  light 

Flow  on — the  city  is  alive. 

It  swarms  to  celebrate  the  dawn  of  night 

Like  some  unloosed  and  monstrous  hive. 

The  sky  and  all  its  sentient  stars  are  hid 

By  scattered  arc-lamps  beaming  blue. 

And  harlots  jostle  sages  where  they  thrid 

The  dancers  in  a  rippling  queue. 

Between  the  gay  quadrilles  that  form  and  break, 

Among  the  waltzers,  clanking  slide 

The  tramways,  with  blue  lightnings  in  their  wake; 

Like  sheaves  of  fire,  the  motors  glide. 

Shame,  like  a  leader  his  bright  baton  wielding 

To  the  rank  music  of  the  wheels, 

Has  fused  the  thousand-throated  throng,  that  yielding 

As  one,  a  holy  chorus  peals: 

"  Dust,  we  enthrone  thee;  brief  and  radiant  Dust, 

Dancing  the  round,  we  glorify, 

About  electric  altars  where  they  thrust 

Their  spears  into  the  empty  sky." 


88  Valery  Brusov 

Oh,  cover  thy  pale  feet ! 


Valery  Brusov 


SAINT  SEBASTIAN  * 

On  slow  and  smoky  fire  thou  burn'st  and  art  consumed, 

Oh,  thou,  my  soul. 
On  slow  and  smoky  fire  thou  burn'st  and  art  consumed, 

With  hidden  dole. 

Thou  droopest  like  Sebastian,  pierced  with  pointed  arrows, 

Harassed  and  spent, 
Thou  droopest  like  Sebastian,  pierced  with  pointed  arrows, 

Thy  flesh  all  rent. 

Thy  foes  encircle  thee  and  watch  with  gleeful  laughter 

And  bended  bow, 
Thy  foes  encircle  thee  and  watch  with  gleeful  laughter 

Thy  torments  slow. 

The  embers  burn,  and  gentle  is  the  arrow's  stinging, 

'Neath  the  evening  sky, 
The  embers  burn,  and  gentle  is  the  arrow's  stinging, 

When  the  end  draws  nigh. 

Why  hastens  not  thy  dream  unto  thy  lips,  now  pallid 

With  deadly  drouth? 
Why  hastens  not  thy  dream  unto  thy  lips,  now  pallid 

To  kiss  thy  mouth? 

1Tr.  by  Avrahm  Yarmolinsky. 


90  Valery  Brusov 


THE  COMING  HUNS 

"Trample  their  Paradise,  Attila!  " 

— VYACHESLAV  IVANOV. 


Where  do  you  stray,  heavy  Huns, 
Who  weigh  on  the  world  like  a  cloud? 
Far,  under  Asian  suns, 
Your  cast-iron  tread  is  loud. 

Swoop  down  in  a  drunken  horde 
From  your  dark  encampments,  rise 
In  a  tide  of  crimson  poured 
Over  this  land  that  dies. 

O  slaves  of  freedom,  pitch 
Your  tent  by  the  palace  gate. 
Plow  deep,  dig  wide  the  ditch 
Where  the  throne  shone  on  your  hate. 

Heap  books  to  build  a  fire! 
Dance  in  their  ruddy  light. 
Foul  altar  steps  with  mire: 
You  are  children  in  our  sight. 

And  we,  the  poets,  the  wise, 

From  the  onslaught  that  darkens  and  raves, 

Defending  the  torch  you  despise, 

Shall  hold  it  in  deserts  and  caves. 


Valery  Brusov  91 

Under  the  scattering  storm, 
The  tempests  that  raven  and  tear, 
What  will  the  hazards  of  harm 
From  our  long  labor  spare  ? 

All  that  we  only  knew 
Shall  perish  and  sink  and  grow  dim. 
But  you  who  shall  slay  me,  you 
I  salute  with  hosanna  and  hymn. 


Ivan  Bunin 

(Born  1870) 

When  Bunin  came  to  Petersburg  at  the  age  of  twenty-five 
he  brought  with  him  memories  of  shabby  manorial  grandeur, 
of  hack  work  in  the  provinces,  and  of  a  Tolstoyan  influence 
that  at  one  time  persuaded  him  to  become  a  cooper.  The  young 
man,  meeting  the  modernists  for  the  first  time,  dubbed  them 
"  sick  boys  with  complete  chaos  in  their  heads."  Bunin  is  him- 
self a  traditionalist  in  an  age  of  iconoclasm,  a  realist  in  a  neo- 
romantic  generation,  a  sober  lyricist  solitary  among  his  ecstatic 
fellows.  His  minor  music  has  the  simplicity  and  sincerity  of  a 
sorrowful  Mozart.  He  celebrates  the  melancholy  charm  of 
vanishing  things,  never  foreswearing  his  classic  clarity.  Yet 
there  is  a  growing  exotic  strain  in  this  poet  of  the  Northern 
Russian  landscape.  He  is  a  less  vivid  Leconte  de  Lisle,  revivi- 
fying forgotten  deities  and  filling  his  verse  with  Oriental  color, 
fragrance  and  warmth.  His  nostalgia  for  the  distant  seems  to 
grow  by  the  travel  upon  which  it  feeds.  Perhaps  this  intimacy 
with  what  is  foreign  gives  his  translations  from  Longfellow, 
Byron  and  Tennyson  their  remarkably  rich  quality. 

When  in  1909  Bunin  was  elected  to  the  Academy  of  Sciences, 
this  rare  distinction  was  conferred  upon  him  for  his  prose  as 
much  as  for  his  poetry.  Indeed  the  former  is  the  part  of  his 
work  which  bulks  largest.  His  prose  eeuvre  consists  of  his 
black  and  bitter  sketches  of  the  Russian  peasantry,  naked  studies 
in  psychology,  and  tales  in  the  manner  of  a  diminutive  Joseph 
Conrad.  "  The  Gentleman  from  San  Francisco,"  one  of  his 
most  recent  and  impressive  stories,  is  the  only  one  available 
in  English. 

Bunin  was  one  of  the  first  to  flee  Soviet  rule,  eventually 
settling  in  Paris. 


Ivan  Bunin  93 


RUSSIAN  SPRING 

In  the  valley  the  birches  are  bored. 
On  the  meadows,  fog  billows  and  weighs. 
Sodden,  with  horse-dung  floored, 
The  highroad  blackens  in  haze. 

Rich  on  the  steppe's  sleepy  air, 
The  odor  of  freshly-baked  bread. 
Bent  to  their  packs,  slowly  fare 
Two  beggars  to  look  for  a  bed. 

Round  puddles  gleam  in  the  streets. 
The  fumes  of  the  ovens  stun. 
Thawing,  the  bleak  earthen  seats 
Smolder  and  steam  in  the  sun. 

By  the  corn-bin,  dragging  his  chain, 
The  sheep-dog  yawns  on  the  sill. 
Walls  smoke  with  the  charcoal  stain. 
The  steppe  is  foggy  and  still. 

The  carefree  cock  will  perform 
Day-long  for  the  sap-stirred  earth. 
In  the  fields  it  is  drowsy  and  warm, 
In  the  heart — indolent  mirth. 


94  Ivan  Bunin 

A  SONG 

I'm  a  plain  girl,  whose  hands  are  stained  with  earth. 
He  is  a  fisherman — he's  gay  and  keen. 
The  far  white  sail  is  drowning  in  the  firth. 
Many  the  seas  and  rivers  he  has  seen. 

The  women  of  the  Bosphorus,  they  say, 
Are  good-looking  .  .  .  and  I — I'm  lean  and  black. 
The  white  sail  drowns  far  out  beyond  the  bay. 
It  may  be  that  he  never  will  come  back. 

I  shall  wait  on  in  good  and  evil  weather. 
If  vainly,  take  my  wage,  go  to  the  sea 
And  cast  the  ring  and  hope  away  together. 
And  my  black  braid  will  serve  to  strangle  me. 


Ivan  Bunin  95 


THE  GOD  OF  NOON 

Black  goats  I  herded  with  my  sister;  they 

Grazed  by  red  rocks;  the  grass  rose  stiff  and  stinging. 

Warming  their  backs,   stones  to   the   foot-hills  clinging 

Slept  dumbly  on.    And  sheer  blue  shone  the  bay. 

By  the  gnarled  silver  of  an  olive  flinging 

My  drowsy  limbs,  in  its  dry  shade  I  lay, — 

He  came — like  a  hot  cobweb  net,  asway, 

Or  like  a  cloud  of  flies  about  me  singing. 

He  bared  my  knees.    Kindled  my  quiet  feet. 

The  silver  on  my  shirt  his  white  fire  burned. 

His  hot  embrace  is  heavy,  ah,  and  sweet. 

He  laid  me  on  my  back.    The  whole  sky  turned. 

He  tanned  my  naked  bosom  to  the  teat. 

From  him  the  cammomile's  kind  use  I  learned. 


96  Ivan  Bunin 


IN  AN  EMPTY  HOUSE 

From  the  walls  the  paper's  blue  is  vanished, 
The  daguerreotypes,  the  ikons  banished. 
Only  there  the  deepened  blue  appears 
Where  these  hid  it,  hanging  through  the  years. 

From  the  heart  the  memory  is  perished, 
Perished  all  that  long  ago  it  cherished! 
Those  remain,  of  whom  death  hides  the  face, 
Leaving  their  yet  unforgotten  trace. 


Ivan  Bunin  97 

FLAX 

She  sits  on  tumulus  Savoor,  and  stares, 
Old  woman  Death,  upon  the  crowded  road. 
Like  a  blue  flame  the  small  flax-flower  flares 
Thick  through  the  meadows  sowed. 

And  says  old  woman  Death:   "  Hey,  traveler! 
Does  any  one  want  linen,  linen  fit 
For  funeral  wear?    A  shroud,  madam  or  sir, 
I'll  take  cheap  coin  for  it!  " 

And  says  serene  Savoor:  "  Don't  crow  so  loud! 
Even  the  winding-sheet  is  dust,  and  cracks 
And  crumbles  into  earth,  that  from  the  shroud 
May  spring  the  sky-blue  flax." 


Vyacheslav  Ivanov 

(Born  1866) 

Ivanov's  life  was  not  one  to  "  hurry  to  a  sphere,  and  show, 
and  end."  Rather,  its  fruit  slower  grew,  and  later  hung.  He 
began  to  write  at  the  age  of  thirty-seven,  after  having  spent 
half  as  many  years  abroad  as  a  student,  and  joined  the  ranks 
of  the  symbolists.  He  learned  antiquity  from  "  Mommsen, 
Athens  and  Rome,"  and  modernity  from  Nietzsche  and  Dostoyev- 
sky.  A  curious  feature  of  Ivanov's  thinking  is  a  synthesis  of 
Dionysos  and  Christ,  which  is  characteristic  of  the  Greek  re- 
vival in  Russia,  and  which  is  attested  to  in  his  profound  treatise 
on  "The  Hellenic  Religion  of  the  Suffering  God."  His  exqui- 
site art  feeds  on  the  Dionysian  grape,  but  this  has  a  sacramental 
flavor,  and  strangely  through  the  features  of  his  Dionyscs  shows 
the  effigy  of  a  tragic  Christ.  To  him  religion  is  the  very  stuff 
of  culture,  and  art  a  myth-making,  and  eren  a  theurgic  power. 
Unlike  his  older  fellow-symbolists,  he  builds  not  upon  individ- 
ualism, but  upon  the  principle  of  sobornost,  or  communal  reli- 
gious expression  suggestive  of  Vachel  Lindsay's  creed.  He  has 
the  mentality  and  the  manner  of  a  mystagogue  and  a  pontiff. 

Ivanov's  poetry  is  caviar  to  the  general.  His  Pegasus  is 
caparisoned  with  abstruse  erudition  and  weighed  down  with 
intricate  thought.  Yet  a  limpid,  golden  beauty  triumphs  over 
the  shadows  in  many  lyrics.  These  are  cast  in  the  pure  Grecian 
mold,  these  burn  with  "  ft. "  's  spiritual  flame,  and  these  are  the 
ordered  ecstasies  of  a  Francis  Thompson.  His  latest  poems 
are  a  cycle  of  Winter  Sonnets — written  in  blockaded  Petrograd 
in  1920 — filled  with  the  sadness  of  resignation  to  loss  and 
change. 


Vyacheslav  Ivanov  99 

THE  CATCH 

Now  the  golden  leafage  is  beggared. 
Shining  through  the  porches  of  autumn, 
Shows  the  cool  blue  stillness  of  heaven. 
Lo,  the  thin-trunked  grove  is  transcended: 
Carved  in  stone,  a  columned  cathedral. 
Smoke-scrolls  wind  about  the  frail  friezes; 
Flung  above  the  doors  is  a  curtain — 
Open-work :  like  nets  of  God's  fishers 
That  the  catch  has  slipped  through  and  broken, 
Like  thy  tatters,  sacred  and  lovely, 
At  the  entrance  of  a  white  temple, 
Oh  thou  golden  mendicant  music! 


ioo  Vyacheslav  Ivanov 


AUTUMN 

The  air  is  sad  and  still.    A  bright  transparency ! 
Enskied  a  woman  veiled  in  light  invisibly 
Upholds  a  balance  high  above  the  clear  sun's  pouring, 
The  instant's  equipoise,  serene  and  frail,  adoring. 

But  each  sere  leaf  that  from  the  trees  falls,  separate, 
And  lays  upon  the  golden  scales  its  trembling  weight 
May  force  the  balance  Summer's  plenty  freighted 
Down  to  the  wintry  regions  soon  to  darkness  fated. 


Vyacheslav  Ivanov  101 


FOUNTAIN 

Clear  the  fountain  waters  glowing, 
Living  streams,    the  well-springs   flowing, 
Cold,  in  darkling  woods,  a  spring. 
In  the  shed,  cool  stillness  streaming, 
O'er  the  well,  a  candle  gleaming 
On  Christ's  crown  its  gilding  flings. 

In  the  Eden  field — a  bower, 

And  a  fountain,  and  a  flower. 

Christ,  star-voiced,  the  spirit  stills: 

"  Come,  before  the  well-spring  stooping, 

Of  my  quiet  waters  scooping, — 

For  the  stintless  bucket  fills." 


IO2  Vyacheslav  Ivanov 

THE  SEEKING  OF  SELF 

Dying,  the  seed  will  discover  the  self  it  finds  in  the  losing. 
That  is,  oh,  Nature,  thy  law!     That  is  thy  lesson,  oh, 

Man! 
Hearing   dark  music,   the  poet  knoweth    no    rest;    he 

abideth — 
Purer  and  purer  the  sound,  clearer  the  fore-uttered  word. 


Vyacheslav  Ivanov  103 

COMPLAINT 

Your  soul,  born  deaf  and  blind,  inhabits 
Jungles  of  sunless  reverie, 
Where  with  the  crash  of  trampled  saplings 
Wild  droves  of  dark  desires  roam  free. 

A  torch  I  kindled  in  the  darkness 
To  lead  you  to  my  starry  gate, 
With  seeds  of  light  in  shining  handfuls 
The  furrows  of  your  night  to  sate. 

I  stand  amid  the  trackless  stretches 
And  hail  you  in  the  wilderness ; 
But  lost  in  dark  and  dreary  caverns 
My  cry  sinks  silent,  answerless. 


104  Vyacheslav  Ivanov 

NARCISSUS:  A  POMPEIIAN  BRONZE 

Beautiful  boy,  like  a  faun  here  in  loneliness  roaming, 
who  art  thou? 

Surely  no  child  of  the  woods :  thine  is  too  pridef ul  a  face. 

Music  that  moves  in  thy  gait,  the  wrought  grace  of  thy 
sumptuous  sandal 

Tell  thou  art  son  to  the  gods,  or  the  high  offspring  of  kings. 

Poised,  with  thy  listening  limbs,  thou  hast  followed  the 
lips  of  the  forest, 

Harkening,  bending  thy  head,  fingering  softly  the  sound. 

Was  it  the  piping  of  Pan  or  the  amorous  sighing  of  Echo  ? 

Whisper  of  dryads,  or  words  fluent-limbed  naiads  repeat  ? 

Pressing  thy  thigh  with  thy  arm,  now  the  light  shoulder- 
fleece  like  a  garland 

Thou  hast  entwined  on  thy  wrist,  thou,  like  Liasus  at  rest. 

Wonderful,  art  thou  in  truth  the  gay  Bacchus,  Nysaean 
nymphs  cherished, 

Hunter,    whom    goddesses   loved,    naked    and    idle    and 


young 


Or  art  thou  haughty  Narcissus,  whom  secret  sweet  har- 
monies guided, 

Wandering,  languid  with  sleep,  drunken,  alone  with  his 
dream  ? 

Go,  seek  the  summoning  nymph,  oh  thou  blind,  not  yet 
knowing  thy  image, 

Go  thou,  but  dare  not  to  bend  over  the  slumbering  wave. 

Oh,  if  thou  art  not  Narcissus,  yet  seeing  thy  face  in  the 
waters, — 

Stranger,  I  tremble, — anew,  thou  a  Narcissus  shalt  be. 


Vyacheslav  Ivanov  105 

FUNERAL 

Of  funerals,  the  saddest 

Is  love's  that  dies  unanswered. 

The  soul  has  two  to  bury : 

The  soul  of  the  beloved 

And  its  own  other  selfhood. 

And  a  third  enters,  living, 

The  funeral  flame  that  wraps  them; 

His  wings  a  yoke  has  weighted: 

Him  the  wise  lips  of  lovers 

Call  in  their  kisses,  Eros, 

And  gods :  the  Resurrector. 


106  Vyacheslav  Ivanov 


THE  HOLY  ROSE 

The  rfoly  Rose  her  leaves  will  soon  unfold. 
The  tender  bud  of  dawn  already  lies 
Reddening  on  the  wide,  transparent  skies. 
Love's  star  is  a  white  sail  the  still  seas  hold. 
Here,  in  the  light-soaked  space  above  the  wold, 
Through  the  descending  dew  the  arches  rise 
Of  the  unseen  cathedral,  filled  with  cries 
From  the  winged  weavers  threading  it  with  gold. 

Here  on  the  hill,  the  cypress,  in  accord 
With  me,  stands  praying :  a  cowled  eremite. 
And  on  the  roses'  cheeks  the  tears  fall  light. 
Upon  my  cell  the  patterned  rays  are  poured. 
And  in  the  East,  the  purple  vines  bleed  bright, 
And  seething,  overflow.  .  .  .  Hosannah,  Lord! 


Vyacheslav  Ivanov  107 


NOMADS  OF  BEAUTY 

"  You  are  artists,  Nomads  of  Beauty." 

— "  Flamings." 

For  you — ancestral  acres, 
And,  choked,  the  graveyard  waits. 
For  us,  the  free  forsakers, — 
The  camp  that  Beauty  fates. 

For  us — the  daily  treason, 
The  tents  we  daily  flee, 
Mocked  by  each  dawning  season 
Of  our  captivity. 

Believe  the  dimmer  distance, 
All  curtains:  magic  veils, 
All  Springtides'  green  persistence, 
Whole  heaven's  vasty  gales ! 

Oh,  vagrant  artists,  shepherd 
Your  droves  of  dreams  unbound ; 
And  sow,  although  you  jeopard 
The  soon-abandoned  ground. 

And  from  your  open  spaces 
Rush  down,  a  whirling  horde, 
Where  slaves  tamed  to  the  traces 
Adore  their  overlord. 


io8  Vyacheslav  Ivanov 

Trample  their  Edens,  plow  them, 
Oh,  Attila,  with  scars. 
And  grow — to  Beauty  vow  them—- 
Your steppe  flowers  like  stars. 


Yurgis  Baltrushaitis 

(Born  1873) 

Born  into  a  peasant  family  of  Lithuanian  Catholics,  this 
member  of  the  symbolists'  younger  generation  began  by  herding 
cows  in  his  native  village.  He  tutored  his  way  through  high 
school,  and  reached  the  University  of  Moscow,  where  he  soon 
veered  from  science  to  letters.  He  became  both  a  linguist  and 
a  traveler,  going  west  as  far  as  Chicago. 

Although  Baltrushaitis  may  be  claimed  by  the  Lithuanian  as 
well  as  the  Russian  literature,  this  reticent  poet  does  not  often 
avail  himself  of  either  tongue.  He  carries  on  the  philosophical 
tradition  of  Russian  poetry.  His  disciplined  and  concentrated 
art  moves  on  a  plane  of  abstractions.  His  is  a  mystical  auster- 
ity and  a  Buddhistic  aloofness  from  things  personal. 


109 


HO  Yurgis  Baltrushaitis 

THE  PENDULUM 

When  tne  dumb  darkness  most  heavily  clings, 
Rhythmic  and  ruthless  my  pendulum  swings. 
Rustily  creaking  or  whining  dismay, 
Urging  each  tarrying  moment  away. 

Longing,  it  seems,  for  the  days  that  are  fled, 
Down  ancient  stairways  resounds  someone's  tread. 
Heavy  the  footfall  on  flagstones  unlit, — 
Lower  and  lower  and  down  to  the  pit. 

Praying,  it  seems,  for  a  long-vanished  shore, 
Dumbly  the  Helmsman  with  slow  stubborn  oar 
Brokenly  rows  me,  morosely  alone, 
Into  my  harbor,  afar  and  unknown. 

Evil  the  Ferryman,  darkly  he  pounds; 
Farther  and  farther,  more  muffled  resounds, 
Hostile  and  hopeless,  the  long  downward  climb: 
Cold,  ineluctable  footsteps  of  Time. 


Yurgis  Baltrushaitis  III 

THE  SURF 

The  day's  wild  ocean  sings  and  thunders, 
And  beats  against  the  fatal  shore, 
This  breaker  with  dumb  sorrow  sunders, 
And  these  like  laughing  victors  roar, 
Their  sheen — the  joy  of  vernal  wonders, 
Their  sheen — vast  winter's  shining  hoar. 

In  wrath  triumphant  forward-swinging, 
The  lifted  billow  calls,  and  fails, 
A  joyous  giant,  shouting,  singing, 
Its  voice  the  voice  of  sounding  gales, 
Its  glory  in  the  sunlight  flinging 
Whose  noonday  glow  it  holds  and  hails. 

Across  the  sea,  now  lightly  foaming, 

Another  rears,  that  stirs  the  deep, 

And   floods  the  shore  with  silence,   gloaming; 

Morose  and  slow  it  seems  to  creep 

Like  one  who  drops,  worn  out  with  roaming, 

From  his  bent  back  a  fatal  heap. 

Each  moment  new,  with  changing  power, 
The  surf  is  thundering,  alone. 
Now  idle,  now  it  seems  to  lower, 
Hymning  a  Silence  all  unknown, 
Like  a  dark  heart  asleep, — for  hour 
On  hour  in  restless  monotone. 


Maximilian  Voloshin 

(Born  1877) 

Of  the  three  confessed  elements  of  Voloshin's  life:  places, 
books,  and  men,  places  came  first.  Born  in  Kief,  his  early 
impressions  were  associated  with  the  Crimea,  the  Hellenic 
promontory  of  the  Scythian  plain.  At  twenty-three  he  glimpsed 
the  desert  of  central  Asia.  But  in  his  own  words  he  found 
"the  fatherland  of  his  spirit"  on  the  Mediterranean  littoral. 
And  Paris  was  the  peak  on  which  the  climbing  poet  came  to 
rest,  finding  there  the  lifting  consciousness  of  rhythm  and  form. 
Books  came  second:  Russian,  of  course,  and  later  foreign 
books:  the  sophistry  of  France  and  the  wisdom  of  immemorial 
India.  Men,  Voloshin  admits,  came  last.  And  so  his  acid 
bites  into  the  plate  most  frequently  to  etch  still  life,  or  a 
landscape  where  the  presence  of  God  or  man  is  a  thing 
remembered. 

By  his  own  acknowledgment,  he  learnt  the  art  of  verse  from 
Ivanov,  Balmont  and  Heredia.  Whatever  he  may  have  de- 
rived from  the  Russian  poets,  it  is  clear  that  he  shares  Heredia's 
precision  and  plastic  perfection,  his  sonority  and  color.  Volo- 
shin's is  a  richly  visual  poetry.  Indeed,  he  has  earned  his 
bread  as  a  'painter.  Like  Heredia,  he  is  a  sonneteer  of  con- 
summate skill.  The  sonnet  from  "  Lunaria ",  given  here,  con- 
cludes a  cycle  of  fifteen,  which  are  so  written  that  the  last  line 
of  each  forms  the  first  line  of  the  next,  the  final  sonnet  being 
composed  of  the  first  lines  of  the  preceding  fourteen.  And 
finally,  it  may  be  said  of  him,  as  it  was  of  Heredia,  that  this 
Parnassian  is  a  modernist.  Yet  he  has  ever  stood  aloof  from 
coteries,  an  aristocratic  and  solitary  figure. 

Although  seemingly  depayse  and  above  the  battle,  Voloshin 
has  quite  recently  written  several  poems  of  exasperated  and 
retrograde  patriotism,  which,  irrespective  of  their  politics,  are 
magnificent  poetry. 


112 


Maximilian  Voloshin  113 

CIMMERIAN  TWILIGHT  I 

The  evening  light  has  soaked  with  ancient  gold 

And  gall  the  yellow  hills.     Like  tawny  fur 

Grass  rises  shaggy  in  a  ruddy  blur; 

Past  fiery  bushes  metal  waves  unfold ; 

And  enigmatic  cliffs  and  boulders  hold 

Worn  troughs  that  are  the  sea's  chronologer. 

In  the  winged  twilight  figures  seem  to  stir: 

A  heavy  paw,  a  jowl  grins  stark  and  bold, 

Like  swelling  ribs  the  dubious  hillocks  show ; 

On  what  bent  back,  like  wool,  does  savory  grow? 

What  brute,  what  titan,  to  this  region  cleaves? 

The  dark  is  strange  .  .  .  and  yonder,  space  is  clean. 

And  there  the  tired  ocean,  panting,  heaves, 

And  rotting  grasses  breathe  of  iodine. 


114  Maximilian  Voloshin 

CIMMERIAN  TWILIGHT  II 

Here  stood  a  sacred  forest.     Here  the  messenger 

Wing-footed  went,  his  touch  upon  the  dumb  glades  leav- 
ing ... 

Upon  the  site  of  cities,  nor  stones,  nor  ruins  heaving : 

Now  on  burnt  slopes  but  sheep  in  scattered  patches  stir. 

The  mountain  peaks:  cut  crowns!  Across  each  bitten 
spur 

The  clear  green  twilight  flows,  mysteriously  grieving. 

By  whose  dim  longing  stung,  what  is  my  soul  retrieving? 

Who  knows  the  road  of  gods  ?  The  dawns  and  dusks  that 
blur? 

In  its  sonorous  caves  the  rubble,  churned,  is  sounding; 

Lifting  its  weighty  crests,  the  troubled  sea  is  pounding 

Upon  the  sandy  dunes,  upon  the  ringing  shore. 

The  heavy  nights  pass  on  in  tears  through  starry 
spaces  .  .  . 

The  outcast  gods  command,  whom  men  invoke  no  more, 

And  ineluctably  they  show  dark,  alien  faces. 


Maximilian  Voloshin 


CIMMERIAN  TWILIGHT  III 

Above  dark,  rippled  waters  rises  in  retreat 

Earth's  heavy  mass:  the  spines  and  rocky  crests  defying 

The  tortured  steep  in  torrents  of  red  rubble  lying  — 

A  lifeless  land,  its  mourning  reaches  at  my  feet. 

Sad  dreams  and  solemn  dreams  flow  by  me,  bitter-sweet: 

Earth  ancient  and  obscure,  whose  echoing  bays  are  sigh- 

ing, 

Where  in  late  twilight  with  a  sadder  beauty  dying 
The  waves  in  waste  hexameters  billow  and  beat. 
And  where  no  roadways  run  upon  the  dark's  still  rivers, 
Breathing  an  ancient  mystery,   the  dim  sail  swells  and 

quivers 

With  winds  of  tossed  desire  and  seas  that  lift  and  fall. 
An  alien  tremor  takes  my  ship  upon  its  going 
Where  destined  roads  of  daring  and  retribution  call. 
And  lamp-like  in  the  sky  the  Seven  Stars  are  glowing. 


Ii6  Maximilian  Voloshin 

SONNET  XV 

(From  the  Sonnet-cycle  "Lunaria") 

Pure  pearl  of  silence  brooding  on  the  sky, 
Presider  o'er  conception,  lamp  of  dreams, 
Altar  of  nightly  spells,  of  crystal  gleams, 
Queen  of  the  waters  where  thou  lov'st  to  lie, 
With  what  desire,  where  the  long  waves  sigh, 
Through  my  dark  crucifixions,  toward  thy  beams, 
Toward  Dian,  toward  fierce  Hecate,  there  streams 
The  vision  yet  unlived  that  shall  not  die. 

How  strange  thy  diamond  delirium  shines 

In  thy  fair  hollows,  in  thy  joyless  lines, 

And  in  the  flashing  mica  of  thy  seas. 

In  listless  ether  thou  art  horror's  face, 

Thou,  longing's  cry,  whom  icy  gaolers  freeze, 

Thou,  dead  world's  avid  corpse,  cast  out  on  space. 


Maximilian  Voloshin  117 

STIGMATA 

Whose  the  flying  hands,  about  me  shedding 

Fire,  and  leading  me  on  passionate  ways? 

No  sonorous  stones  my  feet  are  treading, 

But  where  vatic  waters  fill  the  days. 

Piercing  through  the  spirit,  sharp  pilasters 

Rise,  and  candle  sting  the  dark  like  bees. 

Oh,  the  hearts  that  bloom  like  crimson  asters, 

Petalled  with  gold-bladed  ecstasies. 

Now  the  evening  on  the  temple  flinging 

Patterned,  carven  crimson,  shines  and  mourns. 

Oh,  the  pale  brow  to  the  altar  clinging, 

Stung  anew  with  stinging  scarlet  thorns ! 

The  whole  soul,  high  vaults  and  portals  glowing, 

Fear  like  incense  swathes  with  dim  blue  bands: 

Ah,  I  know  you,  sacred  corals,  growing 

On  the  pierced  palms  of  these  outstretched  hands. 


Mikhail  Kuzmin 

(Born  1877) 

This  sensitive  and  precious  decadent,  who  flaunts  his  descent 
from  French  emigres  and  Russian  noblemen,  delights  in  literary 
masquerading.  He  is  in  turn  an  eighteenth  century  dandy,  a 
Byzantine  romancer,  a  contemporary  of  Boccaccio,  or  a  fin  de 
siecle  Alexandrian.  His  Alexandrian  Songs  imprison  all  the 
exquisite  fatigues  and  refined  perversions  of  a  culture  cynical 
about  its  own  passing.  The  texture  of  his  poetry  shows  the  care 
and  competence  lavished  by  a  belle  upon  her  complexion.  His 
lyrics  have  the  perfumed  fragility  and  piquant  charm  of  Somov's 
paintings. 


118 


Mikhail  Kuzmin  119 

"  NOW  DRY  THY  EYES  " 

Now  dry  thy  eyes,  and  shed  no  tears. 
In  heaven's  straw-pale  meadows  veers 
Aquarius,  and  earthward  peers, 
His  emptied  vessel  overturning. 
No  storming  snows,  no  clouds  that  creep 
Across  the  sheer  pure  emerald  steep, 
Whence,  thinly-drawn,  a  ray  darts  deep 
As  a  keen  lance  with  edges  burning. 


I2O  Mikhail  Kuzmin 


"  NIGHT  WAS  DONE  " 

Night  was  done.    We  rose  and  after 
Washing,  dressing, — kissed  with  laughter,- 
After  all  the  sweet  night  knows. 
Lilac  breakfast  cups  were  clinking 
While  we  sat  like  brothers  drinking 
Tea, — and  kept  our  dominoes. 

And  our  dominoes  smiled  greeting, 

And  our  eyes  avoided  meeting 

With  our  dumb  lips'  secrecy. 

"  Faust  "  we  sang,  we  played,  denying 

Night's  strange  memories,  strangely  dying, 

As  though  night's  twain  were  not  we. 


Mikhail  Kuzmin  1 21 


FROM  "ALEXANDRIAN  SONGS" 

Dying  is  sweet 

On  the  battle-field 

In  the  hissing  of  arrows  and  spears, 

When  the  trumpet  sounds 

And  the  sun  of  noon 

Is  shining, 

Dying  for  country's  glory 

And  hearing  around  you: 

"Hero,  farewell!" 

Dying  is  sweet 

For  an  old,  venerable  man 

In  the  house 

On  the  bed 

Where  your  forebears  were  born, — where  they  died, 

Surrounded  by  children 

Grown  men, 

And  hearing  around  you: 

"Father,  farewell!" 

But  sweeter, 

Wiser, 

Having  spent  the  last  penny, 

Having  sold  the  last  mill 

For  a  woman 

Who  the  next  day  is  forgotten, 

Having  come 

From  a  gay  promenade 

To  the  sold,  dismantled  mansion 

To  sup, 


122  Mikhail  Kuzmin 

And  to  read  the  tale  of  Apuleius: 

The  hundred  and  first  reading, — 

In  the  warm,  fragrant  bath, 

Hearing  no  farewell, 

To  open  your  veins; 

And  through  the  long  skylight 

Must  come  the  scent  of  stock-gilliflower ; 

Dawn  must  be  glowing, 

And  flutes  be  heard  from  afar. 


Georgy  Chulkov 

(Born  1879) 

Chulkov  has  versified  in  the  strained  mode  current  ten  years 
ago,  and  has  written  novels  that  are  diluted  Dostoyevsky.  He 
shared  the  latter's  Siberian  experiences,  in  fact,  being  exiled 
for  participation  in  student  disturbances.  He  early  began  to 
theorize  about  the  necessity  for  a  return  to  a  more  sober  and 
realistic  art  enriched  by  the  modernistic  adventures. 


123 


124  Georgy  Chulkov 


"  PURPLE  AUTUMN  " 

Purple  Autumn  unloosened  her  tresses  and  flung  them 

On  the  heavens  and  over  the  dew-heavy  fields. 

She  came  as  a  guest  to  the  old,  silent  house, 

Singeing  the  grasses  with  red; 

Through  the  garden  she  moved, — 

Up  the  balcony;  scarcely  she  touched 

The  fragile  old  rails. 

She  pushed  the  door-panel  softly, 

Softly  she  entered  the  room, 

Sprinkling  the  rugs  with  her  sun-yellow  dust, 

Dropped  a  red  leaf  upon  the  piano  .  .   . 

Ever  after  that  hour,  we  heard  her  unceasing,  her  tireless 

rustling, 

Rustle  and  stir  and  soft  whisper. 
And  our  hands  suddenly  met 
With  no  new  words,  new  and  forever  false. 
As  though  we  had  hung  a  wreath  of  red  roses 
On  a  black,  wrought-iron  door 
Leading  into  a  vault 
Where  lay  the  rotting  body 
Of  a  beloved  dream. 
Autumnal  days  were  upon  us, 
Days  of  inscrutable  longing; 
We  were  treading  the  stairs 
Of  autumnal  passion. 
In  my  heart  a  wound, 
Like  the  lamp  of  an  ikon, 
Burned  and  would  not  be  quenched. 


Georgy  Chulkov  125 

The  cup  of  autumnal  poison 

We  pressed  to  our  lips. 

By  the  serpentine  garden  path  Autumn  had  led  us 

To  crepuscular  lilies 

Upon  the  pale,  sand-humbled  pond. 

And  over  the  lilied  waters  and  in  the  roses  of  evening, 

We  loved,  more  superstitiously. 

And  through  the  dark  night, 

On  the  languorous  bed, 

At  the  feet  of  my  love, 

I  loved  death  anew. 

The  minutes  rang  tinkling  like  crystals 

At  the  brink  of  an  autumn  grave: 

Autumn  and  Death  drunkenly  clinked  their  glasses. 

I  pressed  my  thirsty  lips 

To  the  feet  the  ikon-lamp  burnished, 

I  drank  the  cup  of  love. 

Burned  by  the  fires  of  sins, 

Stretched  on  the  cross  of  lusts, 

Shamed,  being  needlessly  faithless, 

I  drank  the  cup  of  love. 

In  the  hour  of  ineffable  dalliance 

I  sensed  the  whisper 

Of  autumn  pain,  of  autumn  passion. 

And  kisses  like  keen  needles 

Burned  and  pierced, 

Weaving  a  wreath  of  thorns. 


Alexander  Blok 
(1880-1921) 

Alexander  Blok  was  educated  at  the  University  of  St.  Peters- 
burg, of  which  his  grandfather  was  the  rector.  He  belongs  to 
the  second  generation  of  symbolists,  and  his  first  volume,  which 
appeared  in  1905,  savors  strongly  of  Solovyov's  spirituality. 
The  upheaval  which  was  shaking  his  country  is  ignored  in  this 
book,  instinct  with  vague  eschatological  expectations  and  de- 
voted to  the  Eternal  Feminine.  Yet  here  she  wears  the  medieval 
aspect  of  the  Lady  Beautiful,  and  spirit  in  her  is  married  to 
flesh.  These  songs,  employing  an  easy  symbolic  cryptogram, 
mingle  the  prayers  of  the  postulant  with  a  rarefied  sensuousness. 
This  asserts  itelf  in  the  succeeding  volumes.  The  white  melody 
is  muffled  by  the  voices  of  earth.  Blok  flees  monastic  walls  for 
the  confusion  of  the  thoroughfares.  The  skirts  of  the  Lady 
Beautiful  are  defiled,  and  the  poet  is  stretched  upon  the  cross  of 
passion,  with  the  bitter  conviction  that  he  is  "  fated  to  love  her 
in  Heaven  only  to  betray  her  on  earth."  Christ  and  Russia  are 
the  other  hypostases  of  Blok's  trinity,  their  Golgotha  strangely 
at  one  with  his  own.  Whether  he  is  a  maker  of  masques  for 
monastic  harlequins,  or  another  CEdipus  before  the  Russian 
sphinx,  whether  he  writes  children's  verse,  lyrical  dramas  of  an 
elusive  symbolism,  or  poems  reminiscent  of  the  earlier  Yeats, 
he  reveals  a  keen  emotional  intensity  and  an  unfailing  sensi- 
tiveness of  technique. 

It  was  given  to  this  delicate  and  remote  lyricist  to  produce 
the  most  significant  poem  of  the  proletarian  revolution.  This 
is  his  striking  epic,  called  "  The  Twelve,"  which  is  known  far 
beyond  the  confines  of  Russia,  and  is  accessible  in  half  a  dozen 
languages. 


126 


Alexander  Blok  127 


"INTO  CRIMSON  DARK" 

Into  crimson  dark  thou  goest, 
Thy  vast  orbits  mock  the  eye. 
Small  the  echo  that  thou  throwest, 
Far,  I  hear  thy  footfalls  die. 

Art  thou  near? — too  far  for  greeting? 
Lost  in  topless  altitudes? 
Shall  I  wait  a  sudden  meeting 
Where  sonorous  stillness  broods? 

In  the  solitude  resounding 
Distant  footsteps  echo  free. 
Is  it  thou  who  flamest,  bounding 
Circles  of  infinity? 


128  Alexander  Blok 


THE  UNKNOWN  WOMAN 

I  have  foreknown  Thee!     Oh,  I  have  foreknown  Thee. 

Going, 

The  years  have  shown  me  Thy  premonitory  face. 
Intolerably  clear,  the  farthest  sky  is  glowing. 
I  wait  in  silence  Thy  withheld  and  worshiped  grace. 
The  farthest  sky  is  glowing :  white  for  Thy  appearing. 
Yet  terror  clings  to  me.    Thy  image  will  be  strange. 

And  insolent  suspicion  will  rouse  upon  Thy  nearing. 
The  features  long  foreknown,  beheld  at  last,  will  change. 
How  shall  I  then  be  fallen ! — low,  with  no  defender : 
Dead  dreams  will  conquer  me;  the  glory,  glimpsed,  will 

change. 

The  farthest  sky  is  glowing !    Nearer  looms  the  splendor ! 
Yet  terror  clings  to  me.     Thy  image  will  be  strange. 


Alexander  Blok  129 


THE  LADY  UNKNOWN 

Of  evenings  hangs  above  the  restaurant 
A  humid,  wild  and  heavy  air. 
The  Springtide  spirit,  brooding,  pestilent, 
Commands  the  drunken  outcries  there. 

Far  off,  above  the  alley's  mustiness, 

Where  bored  gray  summerhouses  lie, 

The  baker's  sign  swings  gold  through  dustiness, 

And  loud  and  shrill  the  children  cry. 

Beyond  the  city  stroll  the  exquisites, 
At  every  dusk  and  all  the  same: 
Their  derbies  tilted  back,  the  pretty  wits 
Are  playing  at  the  ancient  game. 

Upon  the  lake  but  feebly  furious 

Soft  screams  and  creaking  oar-locks  sound. 

And  in  the  sky,  blase,  incurious, 

The  moon  beholds  the  earthly  round. 

And  every  evening,  dazed  and  serious, 
I  watch  the  same  procession  pass; 
In  liquor,  raw  and  yet  mysterious, 
One  friend  is  mirrored  in  my  glass. 

Beside  the  scattered  tables,  somnolent 
And  dreary  waiters  stick  around. 
"In  vino  veritas!"  shout  violent 
And  red-eyed  fools  in  liquor  drowned. 


130  Alexander  Blok 

And  every  evening,  strange,  immutable, 
(Is  it  a  dream  no  waking  proves?) 
As  to  a  rendezvous  inscrutable 
A  silken  lady  darkly  moves. 

She  slowly  passes  by  the  drunken  ones 
And  lonely  by  the  window  sits; 
And  from  her  robes,  above  the  sunken  ones, 
A  misty  fainting  perfume  flits. 

Her  silks'  resilience,  and  the  tapering 
Of  her  ringed  fingers,  and  her  plumes, 
Stir  vaguely  like  dim  incense  vaporing, 
Deep  ancient  faiths  their  mystery  illumes. 

I  try,  held  in  this  strange  captivity, 
To  pierce  the  veil  that  darkling  falls — 
I  see  enchanted  shores'  declivity, 
And  an  enchanted  distance  calls. 

I  guard  dark  secrets'  tortuosities. 
A  sun  is  given  me  to  hold. 
An  acrid  wine  finds  out  the  sinuosities 
That  in  my  soul  were  locked  of  old. 

And  in  my  brain  the  soft  slow  flittering 
Of  ostrich  feathers  waves  once  more; 
And  fathomless  the  azure  glittering 
Where  two  eyes  blossom  on  the  shore. 

My  soul  holds  fast  its  treasure  renitent, 
The  key  is  safe  and  solely  mine. 
Ah,  you  are  right,  drunken  impenitent! 
I  also  know:  truth  lies  in  wine. 


Alexander  Blok  131 

"A  LITTLE  BLACK  MAN" 

A  little  black  man  ran  through  the  city. 

He  extinguished  the  lanterns,  climbing  the  stairs. 

Slow  and  white,  dawn  was  approaching, 

With  the  strange  little  man  climbing  the  stairs. 

Where  quiet,  soft  shadows  brooded  over  the  town, 

Where  the  yellow  strips  of  the  lanterns  were  sleeping, 

Morning  twilight  upon  the  steps  lay  down, 

Into  the  curtains,  into  the  door-shadows  creeping. 

Oh,   how  poor  is  the  city  with  dawn  at  her  windows 

lying! 
Crouching  outside,  the  little  black  man  is  crying. 


132  Alexander  Blok 

RUSSIA 

To  sin,  unshamed,  to  lose,  unthinking, 

The  count  of  careless  nights  and  days, 

And  then,  while  the  head  aches  with  drinking, 

Steal  to  God's  house,  with  eyes  that  glaze; 

Thrice  to  bow  down  to  earth,  and  seven 
Times  cross  oneself  beside  the  door, 
With  the  hot  brow,  in  hope  of  heaven, 
Touching  the  spittle-covered   floor; 

With  a  brass  farthing's  gift  dismissing 
The  offering,  the  holy  Name 
To  mutter  with  loose  lips,  in  kissing 
The  ancient,  kiss-worn  icon-frame; 

And  coming  home,  then,  to  be  tricking 
Some  wretch  out  of  the  same  small  coin, 
And  with  an  angry  hiccup,  kicking 
A  lean  cur  in  his  trembling  groin; 

And  where  the  icon's  flame  is  quaking 
Drink  tea,  and  reckon  loss  and  gain, 
From  the  fat  chest  of  drawers  taking 
The  coupons  wet  with  spittle-stain; 

And  sunk  in  feather-beds  to  smother 
In  slumber,  such  as  bears  may  know, 
Dearer  to  me  than  every  other 
Are  you,  my  Russia,  even  so. 


Alexander  Blok  133 


"  WHEN  MOUNTAIN  ASH  " 

When  mountain-ash  in  clusters  reddens, 
Its  leafage  wet  and  stained  with  rust, 
When  through  my  palm  the  nail  that  deadens 
By  bony  hands  is  shrewdly  thrust, 

When  leaden-rippling  rivers  freeze  me, 
As  on  the  wet  gray  height  I  toss, 
While  my  austere-faced  country  sees  me 
Where  I  am  swinging  on  the  cross, 

Then  through  my  bloody  agonizing 
My  staring  eyes,  with  tears  grown  stiff, 
Shall  see  on  the  broad  river  rising 
Christ  moving  toward  me  in  a  skiff. 

And  in  his  eyes  the  same  hopes  biding, 
And  the  same  rags  from  him  will  trail, 
His  garment  piteously  hiding 
The  palm  pierced  with  the  final  nail. 

Christ !    Saddened  are  the  native  reaches. 
The  cross  tugs  at  my  failing  might. 
Thy  skiff — will  it  achieve  these  beaches, 
And  land  here  at  my  cruciate  height? 


134  Alexander  Blok 

THE  SCYTHIANS 

"  Pan-Mongolism — though  the  word  is  strange, 
My  ear  acclaims  its  gongs." 

— VLADIMIR  SOLOVYOV. 

You  are  the  millions,  we  are  multitude 
And  multitude  and  multitude. 
Come,  fight!    Yea,  we  are  Scythians, 
Yea,  Asians,  a  squint-eyed,  greedy  brood. 

For  you :  the  centuries ;  for  us :  one  hour. 
Like  slaves,  obeying  and  abhorred, 
We  were  the  shield  between  the  breeds 
Of  Europe  and  the  raging  Mongol  horde. 

For  centuries  your  ancient  hammers  forged 
And  drowned  the  thunder  of  far  hates. 
You  heard  like  wild  fantastic  tales 
Old  Lisbon's  and  Messina's  sudden  fates. 

Yea,  so  to  love  as  our  hot  blood  can  love 
Long  since  you  ceased  to  love;  the  taste 
You  have  forgotten,  of  a  love 
That  burns  like  fire  and  like  the  fire  lays  waste. 

All  things  we  love:  clear  numbers'  burning  chill, 

The  ecstasies  that  secret  bloom. 

All  things  we  know :  the  Gallic  light 

And  the  parturient  Germanic  gloom. 


Alexander  Btok  13$ 

And  we  remember  all:  Parisian  hells, 

The  breath  of  Venice's  lagoons, 

Far  fragrance  of  green  lemon  groves, 

And  dim  Cologne's  cathedral-splintered  moons. 

And  flesh  we  love,  its  color  and  its  taste, 

Its  deathy  odor,  heavy,  raw. 

And  is  it  our  guilt  if  your  bones 

May  crack  beneath  our  powerful  supple  paw? 

It  is  our  wont  to  seize  wild  colts  at  play : 
They  rear  and  impotently  shake 
Wild"  manes — we  crush  their  mighty  croups. 
And  shrewish  women  slaves  we  tame — or  break. 

Come  unto  us,  from  the  black  ways  of  war, 

Come  to  our  peaceful  arms  and  rest. 

Comrades,  while  it  is  not  too  late, 

Sheathe  the  old  sword.     May  brotherhood  be  blest. 

If  not,  we  have  not  anything  to  lose. 
We  also  know  old  perfidies. 
By  sick  descendants  you  will  be 
Accursed  for  centuries  and  centuries. 

To  welcome  pretty  Europe,  we  shall  spread 
And  scatter  in  the  tangled  space 
Of  our  wide  thickets.    We  shall  turn 
To  you  our  alien  Asiatic  face. 

For  centuries  your  eyes  were  toward  the  East. 

Our  pearls  you  hoarded  in  your  chests, 

And  mockingly  you  bode  the  day 

When  you  could  aim  your  cannon  at  our  breasts. 


136  Alexander  Blok 

The  time  has  come!     Disaster  beats  its  wings. 

With  every  day  the  insults  grow. 

The.  hour  will  strike,  and  without  ruth 

Your  proud  and  powerless  Paestums  be  laid  low. 

Oh  pause,  old  world,  while  life  still  beats  in  you. 
Oh  weary  one,  oh  worn,  oh  wise! 
Halt  here,  as  once  did  QEdipus 
Before  the  Sphinx's  enigmatic  eyes. 

Yea,  Russia  is  a  Sphinx.     Exulting,  grieving, 

And  sweating  blood,  she  cannot  sate 

Her  eyes  that  gaze  and  gaze  and  gaze 

At  you  with  stone-lipped  love  for  you,  and  hate. 

Go,  all  of  you,  to  Ural  fastnesses, 

We  clear  the  battle-ground  for  war  ; 

Cold  Number  shaping  guns  of  steel 

Where  the  fierce  Mongol  hordes  in  frenzy  pour. 

But  we,  we  shall  no  longer  be  your  shield. 
But,  careless  of  the  battle-cries, 
Shall  watch  the  deadly  duel  seethe, 
Aloof,  with  indurate  and  narrow  eyes. 

We  shall  not  move  when  the  ferocious  Hun 
Despoils  the  corpse  and  leaves  it  bare, 
Burns  towns,  herds  cattle  in  the  church, 
And  smell  of  white  flesh  roasting  fills  the  air. 

For  the  last  time,  old  world,  we  bid  you  come, 
Feast  brotherly  within  our  walls. 
To  share  our  peace  and  glowing  toil 
Once  only  the  barbarian  lyre  calls. 


Alexander  Blok  137 

FROM  "  THE  TWELVE  " 

9 

The  city's  roar  is  far  away, 
Black  silence  broods  on  Neva's  brink. 
No  more  police!    We  can  be  gay, 
Comrades,  without  a  drop  to  drink. 

A  boorzhooy,  a  lonely  mourner, 
His  nose  tucked  in  his  ragged  fur, 
Stands  lost  and  idle  on  the  corner, 
Tagged  by  a  cringing,  mangy  cur. 

The  boorzhooy  like  a  hungry  mongrel: 
A  silent  question  stands  and  begs; 
The  old  world  like  a  kinless  mongrel 
Stands  there,  its  tail  between  its  legs. 


Andrey  Bely 

(Pseudonym  of  Boris  Bugayev;   born  1880) 

Reared  in  a  professorial  atmosphere,  in  which  science  was 
the  major  element,  Boris  Bugayev,  better  known  under  his 
pseudonym  of  Andrey  Bely,  has  lived  a  double  life  of  artist  and 
analyst.  The  artist  was  engrossed  in  problems  of  form.  He 
created  an  interesting,  experimental  genre  which  he  called 
"  symphony,"  with  cadenced  prose,  verbal  instrumentation  and 
musical  development  of  themes.  The  analyst,  on  his  part,  used 
mathematic  formulae  on  the  poet's  fine  frenzy,  inaugurating  a 
science  of  rhythmics,  at  least  for  the  Russians.  Yet  Bely  is  no 
aesthete,  but  a  mystic,  who  gropes  toward  the  light  of  Christ, 
"  the  timeless  taper,"  and  who  lives  by  the  uncertain  hope  of 
the  ineffable  coming.  The  metaphysical  conflict  is  constantly 
invading  the  field  of  his  poetic  endeavor,  until  his  lyrics  be- 
come the  battle-cries  of  his  spiritual  tourneys.  He  is  respon- 
sible for  more  theorizing  about  symbolism  than  any  one  else, 
but  characteristically  enough,  he  erects  this  nebula  into  a 
Weltanschauung  and  almost  into  an  ethics. 

His  poetry  is  rarefied  and  difficult.  Its  delicate  imagery  is 
but  an  overtone  of  a  resonant  spiritual  note.  His  poems  have 
an  esoteric  quality  which  is  also  evidenced  in  his  two  famous 
novels,  "The  Silver  Dove"  and  "Petersburg."  Through  both 
moves  a  curious  counterpoint  of  the  apocalyptic  and  the  homely, 
muffled  by  theosophic  speculation. 

The  proletarian  revolution  elicited  from  Bely  a  cycle  of 
poems,  suggestively  entitled  "Christ  Is  Risen!"  Herein  he 
envisions  Russia,  of  which  he  once  despaired,  as  the  new 
Nazareth.  Quite  recently  he  completed  the  first  part  of  a 
monumental  epic  planned  for  ten  volumes. 


138 


Audrey  Bely  139 

MESSENGERS 

In  fields  hopeless  and  dumb 
Droops  the  pale-bladed  grain; 
It  is  dozing  and  numb 
Amid  dreams  that  are  vain.  .  .  . 
With  a  high  sudden  hum 
The  field  tosses  its  mane: 
"  Unto  us  Christ  is  come!  " 
The  wild  news  shakes  the  plain. 
Like  a  wind-beaten  drum 
Shouts  the  quivering  grain. 

The  bells  ring  soft  and  slow, 
There  is  clamor  and  pain 
In  the  church,  and  a  low 
Voice  is  lifted  again 
That  reiterates:  "Woe!" 
To  the  poor  folk  and  plain 
Are  brought  candles  aglow: 
"  Christ  is  coming  again !  " 
But  with  voices  of  woe 
They  file  doorward,  in  pain. 


140  Audrey  Bely 

EUTHANASIA 

The  shining  and  ponderous  goblet 
I  empty:  the  earth  drops  below  me, 
All  things  sink  away, — I  am  treading 
Cold  space — the  vast  void — the  dim  ether. 
But  distant,  in  ancient  space  looming, 
My  glimmering  goblet:  the  Sun. 

I  look — far  below  me  are  lying 
The  rivers,  the  forests,  the  valleys, 
Estranged  in  the  vanishing  distance. 
A  cloud,  blowing  fog  on  my  eyelids, 
Trails  gossamer  gold  in  its  going. 

The  flickering  landscape  is  burning 

Its  last:  mid-day  stars  newly-kindled 

Look  into  my  soul,  sparkling :  "  Welcome," 

With  radiance  silently  streaming: 

"  The  end  of  long  wanderings,  brother, 

Lies  here,  in  your  motherland,  welcome !  " 

Slow  hour  upon  hour  in  procession, 
Slow  centuries,  smiling,  pass  onward. 
In  ancient  space  proudly  I  lift  it, 
My  glimmering  goblet:  the  Sun. 


An  drey  Bely  141 

"  YOU  SIT  ON  THE  BED  THERE  " 
(Opening  poem  of  the  "  Funeral  Mass"  cycle) 

"  You  sit  on  the  bed  there 
In  the  sunset's  full  crimson, 
Pillows  crumpled, 
Looking  distracted, — what 
Troubles  you  ?  " 

"  Oh,  swept  by 
Transparent 
Gold  cataracts, 
The  fir-tree  tops 
Loom  athwart  the  sky's  blue." 

"  Orphaned,  alone,  I  shall 
Languish, 
Through  summery 
Twilights  and  Winter  nights. 
There  are  new  flights,  but 
Try  them  I  dare  not. 
Oh,  do  not  die!" 

"  Oh,  above  the  pines 
I  float  off  into  aether  seas. 
Who,  there,  what,  there, 
Swathes  the  sky  with  whitenesses, 
As  with  vestments  of  silver?  " 


Victor  Hofman 
(1882-1911) 

Hofman  has  to  his  credit  some  short  stories  and  two  books  of 
lyrics,  the  second  of  which  appeared  two  years  before  his 
suicide  in  Paris. 


142 


Victor  H  of  man  143 


"  STILL  WAS  THE  EVENING  " 

Still  was  the  evening  of  the  ball, 
The  summer  ball,  with  dancers  wending 
Where  ancient  linden  shadows  fall 
Upon  the  river  steeply  bending; 

Where  in  the  trees  the  breezes  breathe 
And  willows  droop  like  drowsy  dreamers; 
Where  it  seemed  beautiful  to  wreathe 
The  lanterns  and  the  colored  streamers. 

A  languorous  waltz  of  slow  retreatings, 
A  waltz  that  singing  hardly  sounded; 
And  many  faces,  many  meetings, 
Soft  clouds  like  women's  shoulders  rounded. 

The  river  looked  a  sculptured  stream, 
Serenely  the  whole  heaven  holding, — 
A  fluent  and  enchanted  dream 
Of  joyous  miracles  unfolding. 

A  crimson  mantle,  golden-bright, 

Upon  the  clouds  the  sun  was  flinging; 

The  dream-swept  waltz  was  drowned  in  light, 

And  calling  through  the  dusk  and  singing. 

A  languorous  waltz  beside  the  river, 
And  many  meetings,  many  faces, 
And  near  cheeks'  warmth,  and  lovely  quiver 
Where  eyelash  with  curved  eyelash  laces. 


Vasily  Bashkin 

(c.  1880-1909) 

In  his  pro'se  Bashkin  chronicled  the  career  of  Russia's  radical 
intellectuals,  and  as  a  poet  he  acted  the  part  of  a  tame  Tirtaeus 
in  the  camp  of  the  revolution.  He  was  cut  off  by  tuberculosis 
early  in  life. 


144 


Vasily  Bash  kin  145 


"  UPON  THE  BLACK  BROW  OF  A  CLIFF  " 

Upon  the  black  brow  of  a  cliff  where  no  life  ever  stirred 
Alighted   strong,   hoary-winged  eagles,   grave  bird   upon 
bird. 

They  whetted  their  claws  on  the  stones,  sitting  massive 

and  grum, 
And  loudly  they  called  on  their  lately-fledged  comrades 

to  come. 

Slow-measured  and  heavy  the  beat  of  their  wings  on  the 

skies, 
Assuageless  the  rage  that  tempestuous  burned  in  their  eyes. 

And  each  newly-come  they  acclaimed  with  the  pride  of  the 

peer: 
"  Hail,  comrade !    Delay  not !    The  days  we  have  longed 

for  are  near." 


Sergey  Gorodetzky 
(1884-1921) 

This  rather  uneven  and  sometimes  slovenly  poet  worshiped 
at  many  shrines.  He  was  a  lyric  myth-maker  with  Ivanov, 
a  symbolist  with  Blok,  an  advocate  of  several  fashionable 
doctrines,  including  mystical  anarchy  and  mystical  realism. 
At  the  head  of  the  "  Guild  of  Poets  "  which  was  formed  shortly 
before  the  war,  Gorodetzky  attacked  symbolism  with  Johnsonian 
zeal  in  the  name  of  the  "  Acmeist "  faith  in  realities.  The 
poet  became  a  jingo  patriot  when  Russia  entered  the  war,  and 
later  was  as  vociferously  allied  to  the  Bolsheviks  as  he  had 
been  to  his  Czar.  His  best  work  is  informed  with  spirited  spon- 
taneity. The  poetic  restoration  of  the  obscure  Russian  pagan- 
ism, and  a  few  lyrics  carrying  the  dancing  lilt  of  the  folk- 
song, form  his  chief  contribution. 


146 


Sergey  Gorodetzky  147 


YARILA1 

First  to  sharpen  the  ax-flint  they  bent, 
On  the  green  they  had  gathered,  unpent, 
They  had  gathered  beneath  the  green  tent. 
There  where  whitens  a  pale  tree-trunk,  naked, 
There  where  whitens  a  pale  linden  trunk. 
By  the  linden  tree,  by  the  young  linden, 
By  the  linden  tree,  by  the  young  linden, 
The  linden  trunk 
White  and  naked. 

At  the  fore,  shaggy,  lean,  hoar  of  head, 

Moves  the  wizard,  as  old  as  his  runes; 

He  has  lived  over  two  thousand  moons. 

And  the  ax  he  inhumed. 

From  the  far  lakes  he  loomed 

Long  ago. 

It  is  his :  at  the  trunk 

The  first  blow. 

And  two  priestesses  in  their  tenth  Spring 

To  the  old  one  they  bring. 

In  their  eyes 

Terror  lies. 

Like  the  trunk  their  young  bodies  are  bright, 

Their  wan  white 

Hath  she  only,  the  tender  young  linden. 

1  The  Russian  Dionysos. 


i  Sergey  Gorodetzky 

One  he  took,  one  he  led, 

To  the  trunk  roughly  wed, 

A  white  bride. 

And  the  ax  rose  and  hissed — 

And  a  voice  was  upraised 

And  then  died. 

Thus  the  first  blow  was  dealt  to  the  trunk. 

Others  followed  him,  others  upraised 

That  age-old  bloody  ax, 

That  keen  flint-bladed  ax: 

The  flesh  once, 

The  tree  twice 

Fiercely  cleaving. 

And  the  trunk  reddened  fast 

And  it  took  on  a  face. 

Lo, — this  notch — is  a  nose, 

This — an  eye,  for  the  nonce. 

The  flesh  once, 

The  trunk  twice — 

Till  all  reddened  the  rise 

And  the  grass  crimsoned  deep. 

On  the  sod 

In  the  red  stains  there  lies 

A  new  god. 


Sergey  Gorodetzky  149 


THE  BIRCH  TREE 

Upon  an  amber  day  I  loved  you  first, 

When,  summoned  by  the  radiant  azure, 
From  every  grateful  twig  there  burst 
Sweet  indolence  in  dripping  measure. 

Your  whitely  shining  body  gleamed  as  white 
As  heady  foam  on  lakes  unfolding, 
Gay  laughing  Lei 1  drew  out  the  bright 
Black  hair,  its  beauty  lightly  holding. 

Himself,  the  god  Yarila 2  crowned  your  hair 

With  garlands  green  in  gorgeous  pleasure, 
And  flung  it,  plaited,  to  the  air: 
Green  glory  tossed  upon  the  azure. 

1  The  Russian  Pan. 

2  The  Russian  Dionysos. 


Anna  Akhmatova 

Anna  Akhmatova  was  at  one  time  identified  with  the 
Acmeist  group,  which  represented  a  reaction  against  sym- 
bolism. The  work  of  this  talented  lyricist  is  notable  for  its 
classic  tendency  and  an  insistence  on  purely  personal  themes. 
Her  tenuous  verse  delights  in  a  sophisticated  simplicity.  The 
first  of  her  four  slender  volumes  appeared  in  1912. 


ISO 


Anna  Akhmatova  151 


"  LIKE  A  WHITE  STONE  " 

Like  a  white  stone  deep  in  a  draw-well  lying, 
As  hard  and  clear,  a  memory  lies  in  me. 
I  cannot  strive  nor  have  I  heart  for  striving: 
It  is  such  pain  and  yet  such  ecstasy. 

It  seems  to  me  that  someone  looking  closely 

Into  my  eyes  would  see  it,  patent,  pale. 

And,  seeing,  would  grow  sadder  and  more  thoughtful 

Than  one  who  listens  to  a  bitter  tale. 

The  ancient  gods  changed  men  to  things,  but  left  them 
A  consciousness  that  smoldered  endlessly, 
That  splendid  sorrows  might  endure  forever. 
And  you  are  changed  into  a  memory. 


Anna  Akhmatova 


CONFESSION 

From  my  poor  sins  I  am  set  free. 
In  lilac  dusk  the  taper  smolders; 
The  dark  stole's  rigid  drapery 
Conceals  a  massive  head  and  shoulders. 

"Talithakumi":  Is  it  He 

Once  more?    How  fast  the  heart  is  beating 

A  touch:  a  hand  moves  absently 

The  customary  cross  repeating. 


Anna  Akhmatova  153 


"BROAD  GOLD,  THE  EVENING" 

Broad  gold,  the  evening  colors  glow, 
The  April  air  is  cool  and  tender. 
You  should  have  come  ten  years  ago, 
And  yet  in  welcome  I  surrender. 

Come  here,  sit  closer  in  our  nook, 
And  turn  gay  eyes  at  what  my  nurses 
Might  never  glimpse:  the  blue-bound  book 
That  holds  my  awkward  childish  verses. 

Forgive  me  that  I  did  not  look 
Sunward  with  joy,  but  dwelt  with  sorrow, 
Forgive  me  all  whom  I  mistook 
For  you,  oblivious  of  the  morrow. 


154  Anna  Akhmatova 

PRAYER 

Give  me  comfortless  seasons  of  sickness, 
Visitations  of  wrath  and  of  wrong 
On  my  house ;  Lord,  take  child  and  companion, 
And  destroy  the  sweet  power  of  song. 

Thus  I  pray  at  each  matins,  each  vespers, 
After  these  many  wearying  days, 
That  the  storm-cloud  which  broods  over  Russia 
May  be  changed  to  a  nimbus  ablaze. 


Igor  Severyanin 

(Pseud,  of  Igor  Lotarev) 

The  story  goes  that  at  the  beginning  of  his  poetic  career 
Severyanin  took  his  constitutional  on  the  Nevsky  Prospekt  wear- 
ing a  yellow  shirtwaist,  with  green  roses  painted  on  his  cheeks. 
He  enjoys  the  distinction  of  having  founded  the  ego-futurist 
group  in  Petrograd,  which  opposed  the  cubo-futurist  group 
in  Moscow.  He  later  betrayed  the  coterie,  but  remained 
faithful  to  its  canons  of  sound  against  sense.  His  insistence 
on  neologisms  and  words  created  ex  nlhilo  has  produced  a 
style  which  is  becoming  a  poetic  idiom.  Yet  a  genuine  musical 
quality  saves  some  of  his  intolerably  clownish  and  vacuous 
verse.  His  first  book,  "  The  Thunder-Seething  Cup,"  was  pub- 
lished in  1913  and  ran  into  seven  editions  in  two  years,  and  he 
has  now  some  ten  volumes  to  his  credit.  His  poetry  recitals 
have  diverted  both  Czarist  and  Bolshevist  Russia. 


155 


156  Igor  Severyanin 

AND  IT  PASSED  BY  THE  SEA-SHORE 
Poeza  Mignonette 

And   it  passed   by   the   sea-shore,    where   the   foam-laces 

flower, 

Where  the  city  barouches  only  rarely  are  seen.  .  .  . 
There  the  queen  played  her  Chopin  in  the  high  palace 

tower, 
And  there,  listening  to  Chopin,  the  young  page  loved  the 

queen. 

And  what  passed  there  was  simple,  and  what  passed  there 
was  charming: 

The  fair  page  cut  the  pomegranate  as  red  as  her  dreams, 

Then  the  queen  gave  him  half  thereof,  with  graces  dis- 
arming, 

She  outwearied  and  loved  him  in  sonata-sweet  themes. 

Then  she  gave  herself  stormily,  till  night  shut  her  lashes. 
Till    the   sunset    the    queen    lay,    there   she    slept    as    a 

slave.  .  .  . 
And  it  passed  by  the  sea-shore  where  the  turquoise  wave 

washes, 
Where  sonatas  are  singing  and  where  foam  frets  the  wave. 


Igor  S every anin  157 


A  RUSSIAN  SONG 

Lace  and  roses  in  the  forest  morning  shine, 
Shrewdly  the  small  spider  climbs  his  cobweb  line. 

Dews  are  diamonding  and  blooming  faery-bright. 
What  a  golden  air!    What  beauty!    Oh,  what  light! 

It  is  good  to  wander  through  the  dawn-shot  rye, 
Good  to  see  a  bird,  a  toad,  a  dragon-fly; 

Hear  the  sleepy  crowing  of  the  noisy  cock, 
And  to  laugh  at  echo,  and  to  hear  her  mock. 

Ah,  I  love  in  vain  my  morning  voice  to  hurl, 
Ah,  off  in  the  birches,  but  to  glimpse  a  girl, 

Glimpse,  and  leaning  on  the  tangled  fence,  to  chase 
Dawn's  unwilling  shadows  from  her  morning  face. 

Ah,  to  wake  her  from  her  half-surrendered  sleep, 
Tell  her  of  my  new-sprung  dreams,  that  lift  and  leap, 

Hug  her  trembling  breasts  that  press  against  my  heart, 
Stir  the  morning  in  her,  hear  its  pulses  start. 


158  Ig°r  Severyanin 

SPRING  APPLE  TREE 
Aquarelle 

An  apple-tree  in  Spring  shakes  me, — to  see  it  grow, 
Its  branches  whitely  weighted  with  unmelting  snow. 
So  might  a  hunch-backed  girl  stand,  beautiful  and  dumb, 
As   trembling,    the   tree   stands,    and   strikes   my   genius 

numb.  .  .  . 

It  looks  into  the  wide,  pale  shallows,  mirror-clear, 
Seeking  to  shed  the  dews  that  stain  it  like  a  tear  ; 
And  stilled  with  horror,  groans  like  a  rude,  rusty  cart, 
Seeing  the  dismal  hunch  mocked  by  the  pool's  bright  art. 
When  steely  sleep  alights  upon  the  silent  lake 
For  the  bent  apple-tree,  as  for  a  sick  girl's  sake, 
I  come  to  offer  tenderness  the  boughs  would  miss, 
I  press  upon  the  petal-perfumed  tree  a  kiss. 
Then  trustingly,  with  tears,  the  tree  confides  her  care 
To  me,  and  brushes  with  a  touch  my  back-blown  hair. 
Her  boughs  encircle  me,  her  little  twigs  enlace, 
And  I  lift  up  my  lips  to  kiss  her  flowering  face. 


Nikolai  Kluyev 

This  sophisticated  folk-poet,  a  peasant  by  birth,  began  to 
write  just  before  the  outbreak  of  the  war,  when  he  brought 
out  three  volumes  of  verse  within  two  years.  His  mastery 
of  his  medium  has  developed  steadily.  His  imagery,  vivid  and 
concrete,  derives  from  two  sources:  the  routine  of  rural  life 
and  Christian  symbolism.  Kluyev  hailed  the  social  revolution, 
and  Russia  as  its  messiah.  His  most  recent  work,  "  The  Izba 
Songs  ",  has  a  quality  of  deep  and  original  homeliness. 


159 


160  Nikolai  Kluyev 


A  NORTHERN  POEM l 

Sunset  dreams  on  fir-tree  cones, 

Green — the  hedge,  and  brown — the  field ; 

Mossy  rifts  in  weathered  stones 
Meekly  vernal  waters  yield. 

Oh,  look  up  the  wooded  steep — 
God  has  touched  it  with  his  palm; 

Piously  wild  berries  weep, 
T listening  to  the  grassy  psalm. 

And  I  feel  no  fleshly  tie; 

And  my  heart's  a  springing  mead. 
Come,  ye  pilgrims  white  and  shy, 

Peck  the  early  wheaten  seed. 

Tender  evening  twilight  searches 
Cottage  windows,  gabled  byres, 

And  the  leaves  of  slender  birches 
Glimmer  soft  as  wedding  fires. 

1  Tr.  by  Avrahm  Yarmolinsky. 


Nikolai  Kluyev  161 

AN  IZBA  SONG 

The  stove  is  orphaned  now;  the  old  housewife  has  died, 
The  trivet  tells  the  pot  with  tears;  their  talk  is  harried. 
Behind  the  pane  two  trustful  magpies,  side  by  side, 
Chirp :  "  May  is  near,  today  the  finches  will  be  married, 
Smith  Woodpecker  with  busy  knocking  has  stripped  his 

throat, 
The   mole — the   sullen   miner — creeps   sunward,    meekly 

leaving 

His  tunneled,  dark  estate  to  bugs  without  a  groat. 
The    cranes   are   homing    now,    the   sparrow,    pert    and 

thieving, 

Has  heard  the  jackdaw  blurt  the  secret  of  her  egg." 
The  tangled  mop  awaits  the  bucket,  limp  and  tired. 
She  thinks  the  unwashed  porch  for  spuming  suds  must  beg. 
How  gay  would  be  the  splash  of  water,  how  desired 
A  windowful  of  sunray  tow, — an  endless  fairy-tale.  .  .  . 
Behind   the  stove   the  house-sprite    gabbles,    quick    and 

clever, 

Of  the  new  tenant's  stillness  within  the  churchyard's  pale, 
Of  crosses  listening  to  things  nameless  forever, 
Of  how  the  dark  church-entrance  lulls  the  linger  dream. 
The  house-sprite  gabbles  on  above  the  bleak  hour's  stark- 
ness. 

The  peasant-hut  is  scowling ;  pewter  eye  agleam, 
The  lonely  window  stares  out  at  the  thaw  and  darkness. 


Lubov  Stolitza 

This  young  woman  poet  exhibits  a  charm  which  is  insistently 
and  delightfully  feminine. 


162 


Lubov  Stolitza  163 

A  LENTEN  ONE 

Noon  in  golden  thaw  is  garbed  with  glory, 
Midnight's  wrap  of  silver  snows  is  hoary. 
Pink  the  buds  among  the  aspen's  ashes 
Where  the  diamond  hoar-frost  softly  flashes. 
My  kind  cat  has  furtively  departed, 
But  the  swallow  has  returned,  high-hearted. 
Winter  grief  no  more  our  dumb  lips  locking, 
But  upon  the  heart  Spring  grief  is  knocking. 
And  at  noon  we  weep,  our  bosoms  crossing, 
Midnight  sees  us  in  hot  slumber  tossing: 
Quiet  lips,  knees  pressed  as  though  in  prayer, 
But  our  shadowed  eyes  are  our  betrayer. 


Sergei  Yesenin 


Otic  of  the  latest  comers,  Yesenin  is  also  one  of  the  most 
gifted  of  the  younger  Russian  poets.  His  first  book  was  pub- 
lished in  1916.  He  is  a  member  of  a  group  which  has  come 
into  being  during  the  revolution  and  which  calls  itself 
"  imazhinisty "  (imagists).  Like  Kluyev,  he  came  from  the 
masses,  and,  like  him,  operates  with  the  intimate  details  of  the 
peasant's  life  and  faith.  Whatever  his  political  and  literary 
associations,  he  is  a  poet  dei  gratia. 


164 


Sergei  Yesentn  165 


"  UPON  GREEN  HILLS  " 

Upon  green  hills  wild  droves  of  horses  blow 
The  golden  bloom  off  of  the  days  that  go. 

From  the  high  hillocks  to  the  blue-ing  bay 
Falls  the  sheer  pitch  of  heavy  manes  that  sway. 

They  toss  their  heads  above  the  still  lagoon 
Caught  with  a  silver  bridle  by  the  moon. 

Snorting  in  fear  of  their  own  shadow,  they, 
To  screen  it  with  their  manes,  await  the  day. 


(1 66  Sergei  Yesenin 


"  HOPES  PAINTED  BY  THE  AUTUMN  COLD  " 

Hopes,  painted  by  the  autumn  cold,  are  shining, 
My  steady  horse  plods  on,  like  quiet  fate, 
His  moist  dun  lip  is  catching  at  the  lining 
When  the  coat,  flapping,  flutters  and  falls  straight. 

On  a  far  road  the  unseen  traces,  leading 
Neither  to  rest  nor  battle,  lure  and  fade; 
The  golden  heel  of  day  will  flash,  receding, 
And  labors  in  the  chest  of  years  be  laid. 


Sergei  Yesenin  167 


"  IN  THE  CLEAR  COLD  " 

In  the  clear  cold  the  dales  grow  blue  and  tremble ; 
The  iron  hoofs  beat  sharply,  knock  on  knock. 
The  faded  grasses  in  wide  skirts  assemble 
Flung  copper  where  the  wind-blown  branches  rock. 

From  empty  straths,  a  slender  arch  ascending: 
Fog  curls  upon  the  air  and,  moss-wise,  grows, 
And  evening,  low  above  the  wan  streams  bending, 
In  their  white  waters  washes  his  blue  toes. 


1 68  Sergei  Yesenin 


TRANSFIGURATION:  III 

Eh,  Russians, 

Fowlers  of  the  universe. 

You  who  trailed  heaven  with  the  net  of  dawn, 

Lift  your  trumpets ! 

Beneath  the  plow  of  storm 
The  dumb  earth  roars. 
Golden-tusked,  the  colter  breaks 
The  cliffs. 

A  new  sower 

Roams  the  fields. 

New  seeds 

He  casts  into  the  furrows. 

A  guest  of  light  drives  toward  us 
In  a  coach. 
Across  the  clouds 
A  mare  races. 

The  breech-band  on  the  mare: 
The  blue; 

The  bells  on  the  breech-band: 
The  stars. 


Z.  Shishova 

This  is  one  of  the  more  gifted  of  the  woman  poets  in  the 
youngest  choir. 


169 


170  Z.  Shishova 


"  HOW  STRANGE,  OH,  GOD  " 

How  strange,  oh,  God,  as  in  sleep's  euthanasia, 
Thy  earth  today. 

Behind  the  window,  each  like  an  acacia, 
The  poplars  sway. 

From  my  small  muff  my  hand  withdrawing  slightly, 
I  find  it  dry. 

And  from  my  furs,  as  though  May  touched  them  lightly, 
Faint  perfumes  fly. 

And  through  the  night  dark  troubled  dreams  are  rearing: 

They  choke  and  cling. 

How  shall  I  then  forbear  a*-  last  from  fearing, 

Oh,  God,  thy  Spring? 


Piotr  Oreshin 

Oreshin  belongs  to  the  poetic  progeny  of  the  Revolution. 


171 


172  Piotr  Or f shin 

NOT  BY  HANDS  CREATED 

i 

Fall  on  your  face, 
Drop 

Mug-forward  into  the  swamps. 
With  your  old  were-wolf's  eye, 
Cataract-blinded, 
Look 
What  a  blade  I  am ! 

2 

Carrot-haired 

Big-browed  dawns, 

And  the  darkness  of  forests, 

Rye, 

And  the  sheaves  behind  the  village,- 

My  body. 

3 

Long  ears, 

Tufted  with  red  hair, 
Wag 

Like  asses'  ears 
Through  the  heavens! 

4 

Two 

Convulsed  eyes — 
Two 
Oceans  resting  in  me, 


Piotr  Oreshin  173 

And  thick 
Bulbous  lashes 
Burning  green 
On  my  cheek-bones. 

5 

My  stone  mouth 
Is  stretched  with  song 
From  east  to  west. 

6 

Legs 

And  hoofs 

Kicked  skyward 

And 

The  claw 

On  my  hairy  paw 

Blazes. 

7 

Gorged 

And  motionless, 

Like  a  bull, 

I  have  squatted,  rock-fast, 

In  a  long  shirt 

Of  sunsets, 

And  I  sit  now 

Sprawled  out 

On  the  fat  hill  of  the  universe. 


174  Piotr  Ore  shin 

8 

Dark  forests 
Grow 

On  my  hairy  belly, 
And  in  the  stony  fir-trees 
Gray  wolves, 
In  cope  and  coif, 
Having  lit  a  taper, 
Serve 
The  mass. 


9 

Eternal, 

Not  by  hands  created, 

I  roll  my  eyes  heavily 

As  roll  the  mill-stones 

Of  the  blue 

Mills 

Of  heaven. 


IO 

Slowly 

I  chew  the  cud  of  gray  clouds, 

And 

Think 

Of  perishing  brothers 

With   my  wise 

Cheerful  belly. 


Piotr  Oreshin     .  175 

ii 

Through  closed  lids 

I  see 

Between  my  legs  new  rivers 

Heave 

New  ground 

Upon  golden 

Crests. 

12 

Listening  to  the  earth, 
I  spit 

With  out-thrust,  lower  lip, 
And  lo! 
Rains 

Pour  with  the  sound  of  spears 
And,  clinking, 
Pierce  the  earth. 

13 

Eternal, 

Not  by  hands  created, 
With  the  spirit  of  Life-giving  Spring 
I  sweep 

The  tilled  field, 
And 

On  the  naked  knees  of  the  universe 
I  pour 

The  blue  waters 
Of  My  Eternal  Triumph. 
Hosannah  in  the  highest! 


Anatoly  Marienhof 

This  young  poet  belongs  to  the  Imagist  coterie.  His  verse 
is  interesting  for  its  sophisticated  technique  and  its  angular 
ruggedness.  The  title  of  the  second  poem  given  here  refers 
to  the  month  when  the  Soviets  assumed  power. 


I76 


Anatoly  Marienhof  177 

"SAVAGE,  NOMAD  HORDES" 

Savage,  nomad  hordes 

Of  Asia 

Poured  fire  out  of  the  vats! 

Razin's  execution  is  avenged, 

And  Pugachov's  pain 

Whose  beard  was  torn  away. 

Hooves 

Have  broken 

The  scruff  of  the  earth, 

Cold  with  centuries, 

And  the  supernal  sky,  like  a  stocking 

With  a  hole  in  its  heel 

Has  been  taken  out  of  the  laundry-trough 

Wholly  clean. 


1 78  Anatoly  Marienhof 


OCTOBER 

We  trample  filial  obedience, 

We  have  gone  and  sat  down  saucily, 

Keeping  our  hats  on, 

Our  feet  on  the  table. 

You  don't  like  us,  since  we  guffaw  with  blood, 
Since  we  don't  wash  rags  washed  millions  of  times, 
Since  we  suddenly  dared, 
Ear-splittingly,  to  bark:  Wow! 

Yes,  sir,  the  spine 

Is  as  straight  as  a  telephone  pole, 

Not  my  spine  only,  but  the  spines  of  all  Russians, 

For  centuries  hunched. 

Who  makes  a  louder  noise  on  earth  now  than  we  ? 

You  say:  Bedlam — 

No  milestones — no  stakes — 

Straight  to  the  devil .    On  the  church  porch  our  red 

cancan  is  glorious. 

What,  you  don't  believe?    Here  are  hordes, 
Droves  of  clouds  at  men's  beck  and  call, 
And  the  sky  like  a  woman's  cloak, 
And  no  eyelash  of  sun. 

Jesus  is  on  the  cross  again,  and  Barabbas 

We   escort,    mealy-mouthed,    down    the   Tverskoi    Pros- 

pekt.  .  .  . 

Who  will  interrupt,  who  ?    The  gallop  of  Scythian  horses  ? 
Violins  bowing  the  Marseillaise  ? 


Anatoly  Marienhof  179 

Has  it  ever  before  been  heard  of,  that  the  forger 
Of  steel  bracelets  for  the  globe 
Should  smoke  his  rotten  tobacco  as  importantly 
As  the  officer  used  to  clink  his  stirrups? 

You  ask — And  then? 

And  then  dancing  centuries. 

We  shall  knock  at  all  doors 

And  no  one  will  say:  Goddamyou,  get  out! 

We!    We!     We  are  everywhere: 

Before  the  footlights,  in  the  center  of  the  stage, 

Not  softy  lyricists, 

But  flaming  buffoons. 

Pile  rubbish,  all  the  rubbish  in  a  heap, 

And  like  Savonarola,  to  the  sound  of  hymns, 

Into  the  fire  with  it.  ...  Whom  should  we  fear? 

When  the  mundiculi  of  puny  souls  have  become — worlds. 

Every  day  of  ours  is  a  new  chapter  in  the  Bible. 

Every  page  will  be  great  to  thousands  of  generations. 

We  are  those  about  whom  they  will  say: 

The  lucky  ones  lived  in  1917. 

And  you  are  still  shouting:   They  perish! 

You  are  still  whimpering  lavishly. 

Dunderheads! 

Isn't  yesterday  crushed,  like  a  dove 

By  a  motor 

Emerging  madly  from  the  garage? 


Index  of  Authors 


Akhmatova,  Anna,  150-154 

Balmont,  Konstantin,  72-80 
Baltrushaitis,  Yurgis,  109-111 
Baratynsky,   Yevgeny,   13,   14 
Bashkin,  Vasily,  144,  145 
Bely,  Andrey,  138-141 
Blok,  Alexander,  126-137 
Brusov,  Valery,  81-91 
Bunin,  Ivan,  92-97 

Chulkov,  Georgy,  123-125 
Foeth,  see  Shenshin-Foeth 
Gorodetzky,  Sergey,  146-149 

Hippius,  Zinaida,  68-71 
Hofman,  Victor,  142,  143 

Ivanov,  Vyacheslav,  98-108 

Kluyev,  Nikolai,  159-161 
Koltzov,  Alexey,  15,  16 
Kuzmin,  Mikhail,  118-128 


Lermontov,  Mikhail,  17-22 

Maikov,  Apollon,  39-42 
Marienhof,  Anatoly,  176-179 
Merezhkovsky,   Dmitry,   56-60 
Minsky,  N.,  53-55 

Nekrasov,  Nikolai,  30-33 
Oreshin,  Piotr,  171-175 

Polonsky,  Yakov,  47-49 
Pushkin,  Alexander,  3-12 

Severyanin,  Igor,  155-158 
Shenshin-Foeth,  Afanasy,  43-46 
Shishova,  Z.,   169,   170 
Sologub,  Fyodor,  61-67 
Solovyov,  Vladimir,  50-52 
Stolitza,  Lubov,   162,  163 

Tolstoy,  Alexey  K.,  34-38 
Tyutchev,   Fyodor,  23-29 

Voloshin,  Maximilian,  112-117 
Yesenin,   Sergei,   164-168 


iSr 


Edited  by  J.  L.  5PINGARN 


This  series  is  intended  to  keep  Americans  in  touch  with  the 
intellectual  and  spiritual  ferment  of  the  continent  of  Europe 
to-day,  by  means  of  translations  that  partake  in  some  measure  of 
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including  fiction,  belles  lettres,  poetry,  philosophy,  social  and 
economic  discussion,  history,  biography,  etc.;  and  special  at- 
tention will  be  paid  to  authors  whose  works  have  not  hitherto 
been  accessible  in  English. 


"The  first  organized  effort  to  bring  into  English  a  series  of  the 
really  significant  figures  in  contemporary  European  literature.  .  .  . 
An  undertaking  as  creditable  and  as  ambitious  as  any  of  its  kind  on 
the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic." — Neiv  York  Evening  Post. 


THE  WORLD'S  ILLUSION.    By  JACOB  WASSERMANN.    Translated  by 
Ludwig  Lewisohn.    Two  volumes. 

One  of  the  most  remarkable  creative  works  of  our  time,  revolving 
about  the  experiences  of  a  man  who  suras  up  the  wealth  and  culture 
of  our  age  yet  finds  them  wanting. 


PEOPIE.    By  PIERRE  HAMP.    Translated  by  James  Whitall.         With 
Introduction  by  Elizabeth  Shepley  Sergeant 

Introducing  one  of  the  most  significant  writers  of  France,  himself  a 
working  man,  in  whom  is  incarnated  the  new  self-consciousness  of 
the  worker's  world. 


DECADENCE,  AND  OTHER  ESSAYS  ON  THE  CULTURE  OF 
IDEAS.  By  REMY  DE  GOURMONT.  Translated  by  William 
Aspenwall  Bradley. 

The  critical  work  of  one  of  the  great  aesthetic  thinkers  of  France, 
for  the  first  time  made  accessible  in  an  authorized  English  version. 

HISTORY:  ITS  THEORY  AND  PRACTICE.  By  BENEDETTO  CROCK. 
Translated  by  Douglas  Ainslie. 

A  new  interpretation  of  the  meaning  of  history,  and  a  survey  of  the 
great  historians,  by  one  of  the  leaders  of  European  thought. 

THE  NEW  SOCIETY.  By  WALTER  RATHENAU.  Translated  by 
Arthur  Windham. 

One  of  Germany's  most  influential  thinkers  and  men  of  action  pre- 
sents his  vision  of  the  new  society  emerging  out  of  the  War. 

THE  PATRIOTEER.  By  HEINRICH  MANN.  Translated  by  Ernest 
Boyd. 

A  German  "  Main  Street,"  describing  the  career  of  a  typical  product 
of  militarism,  in  school,  university,  business,  patriotism,  and  love. 

MODERN  RUSSIAN  POETRY:  AN  ANTHOLOGY.  Translated  by 
Babette  Deutsch  and  A.  Yarmolinsky. 

Covers  the  whole  field  of  Russian  verse  since  Pushkin,  with  the 
emphasis  on  contemporary  poets. 

CHRIST.  By  GIOVANNI  PAPINI.  Translated  by  Dorothy  Canfield 
Fisher.  In  preparation. 

The  first  biography  of  Christ  by  a  great  man  of  letters  since  Renan's. 

THE  REFORM  OF  EDUCATION.  By  GIOVANNI  GENTILE.  With  an 
Introduction  by  Benedetto  Croce.  Translated  by  Dino 
Bigongiari.  In  preparation. 

A   n<*w   interpretation  of  the   meaning  of   education,   by  one  who 
shares  with  Croce  the  leadership  of  Italian  thought  to-day. 


HARCOURT,  BRACE  AND  COMPANY 

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